


Two Years Gone

by squirenonny



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (in places), Autistic Keith (Voltron), Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Found Family, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, In this house we love and respect Kuron and mourn his passing, Keith & Krolia's Missing Years, Missing Scene, Season/Series 06, Team as Family, Touch-Averse Keith, Touch-Starved Keith (Voltron), Whump, author is autistic, not season 7 compliant, post-season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-05-23 23:52:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 49,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14943692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squirenonny/pseuds/squirenonny
Summary: Two years he's been alone. Just him, his mom, and his dog.He didn't... He could have asked for a hug, he supposes, but there were always more pressing concerns. Food to find, water to haul, fires to watch. He went whole days without even seeing Krolia, and most of their conversations revolved around the practical.(One part exploration of Keith & Krolia's missing years, one part healing after the fact featuring simultaneously touch-averse and touch-starved Keith.)





	1. At the End

**Author's Note:**

> As far as spoilers are concerned, this is set after season 6 episode 7, though approximately half is going back to the time Keith & Krolia spent in the time-warping abyss. Because you can't slip a line like that in and then NOT explore the ramifications of two entire years happening off-screen. Updating as fast as the early chapters write themselves, then probably eventually settling into a weekly posting schedule. *shrugs* I just know I had to start on this immediately. Probably mostly canon-compliant, but forgive me if I play a little loose with it in places. Canon gave me a mostly blank canvas to work with, so I'm gonna take it damn it. (Update: This fic is NOT season 7 compliant. Just roll with it.)
> 
> A note on the MCD tag: Operation Kuron is a minor theme through several of the early chapters and a major theme in the last two. There are no on-screen deaths in this fic, but it does deal frankly with the death of multiple Shiros that happen before the start of the "present day" storyline. All Shiros are treated as equally real, and their deaths are acknowledged and mourned, so some of the discussions (especially towards the end of the story) can hit hard, even though the Shiro who is present in this story (season 1-2 Shiro) survives the entire thing.

* * *

  **Present Day**

* * *

It's only at the end that Keith acknowledges what he's been missing. The static tingle across his skin where bruises wait to be uncovered--where he and Shiro (not Shiro?) clashed and wrestled and battled for survival. The way his cheek still pulls tight, not just from the burn that's still fresh, but from the ghost of a touch.

The way his fingers hook into Shiro's armor and pull him tighter. The way Shiro's weight in his lap, Shiro's head against his shoulder, feels like too much and not enough all at the same time.

When Coran tries to pull Shiro away to run a diagnostic with the sparse medical equipment they managed to save, Keith forgets how to breath. He freezes, clutching at Shiro like he'll fade back into the astral plane the instant Keith lets go. Shiro's eyes find his, and even through the unimaginable weight of his injuries and the fatigue of _dying_ and coming back to life, Shiro manages to look like all that matters is Keith's stupid, pathetic panic.

Keith lets go.

Coran takes Shiro away.

And Keith comes untethered, floating out of his skin like he did so long ago when he was bandied about in the currents of time.

Yorak appears at his side in a flash, her paws up on his shoulders forcing him to the ground. Her weight pins him, even strains his breathing just a touch, but there's no fear in this. She knows just how far she can push. She knows when he needs space.

The others are laughing now--not cruelly, just in a release of nerves and tension. Keith can tell he's not the only one fighting off tears, but unlike the others, he can't joke about the odds of finding a dog out here in space. He can't joke about much of anything, right now.

Touch.

He winds his fingers into Yorak's fur, pulling her closer, breathing in the musty-ozone-salt scent of her pelt. Two years.

Two years he's been alone. Just him, his mom, and his dog.

He didn't... He could have _asked_ for a hug, he supposes, but there were always more pressing concerns. Food to find, water to haul, fires to watch. He went whole days without even seeing Krolia, and most of their conversations revolved around the practical.

Honestly, he never really thought about it, just like he never thought about it after his dad died, when people wanted to pinch his cheeks and ruffle his hair and kiss his head and everything else that snapped and stung, but no one ever thought to pull him into a crushing hug like his dad used to give. Just like when he came to the Garrison and it was all hand-to-hand training and fistfights in the hallways until Shiro settled a hand on either shoulder, heavy and secure, and squeezed, and told him without words that everything was going to be okay.

Just like after Shiro disappeared, when Keith retreated to the desert and spent a year with no one for company but a handful of lizards and a rattlesnake that liked to test the boundaries of Keith's territory.

He didn't think he could miss touch anymore. He thought he'd learned to get by without, once he realized how very many touches felt like sandpaper on his skin.

Turns out he was wrong.

Keith doesn't wait for Coran to finish with Shiro's scans. While the others are all still trying to come to grips with their new reality, Keith nudges Yorak off him, stands, and retreats to the Black Lion.

* * *

**Two Years Ago**

* * *

Keith isn't sure what drives him to save the wolf. He doesn't know anything about the ecosystem in the abyss. For all he knows, cosmic wolves are dying all the time. Getting sick, getting eaten, getting injured in fights or in falls. Maybe they're an invasive species and he should be trying to help drive them out, rather than sheltering this one.

But...

He feels a kinship to her the moment they lock eyes. There she is, alone, lost in space, torn away from whatever family she might have. He feels sorry for her.

Krolia is exasperated at first, and then she tries to rationalize it away. "It appears to be a carnivore," she says, "so it can probably hunt. That can be an advantage to us so long as it doesn't come to view us as either a threat to its territory or as prey."

"It looks like she's still a puppy," Keith points out. "If we raise her, she'll probably view us as part of her... pack, I guess."

Krolia's lips tighten. "I suppose we could make use of it. As a guard beast, if nothing else."

"So... I can keep her?" Keith asks, still crouched beside the pup with one hand tangled in her impossibly soft fur. It feels liquid between his fingers, sliding against his skin like the finest silk.

Krolia stares at him, then glances at the oddly-colored sky and sighs, a surprisingly human gesture. "Oh, all right. But you're taking care of it."

It's the first time he thinks he's ever been on the receiving end of something so, for lack of a better term, Hollywood-parental. How many movies has he seen where a kid brings home a pet and begs his parents to let him keep it? How many TV shows? How many books and comics and games? He's never been as voracious a consumer of media as the other paladins, but even he knows that that's just what families do.

It's kind of nice, to have that with Krolia.

It's even nicer to have a pet wolf.

* * *

He takes his time deciding on a name. After all, if Keith is going to train her to hunt and track and stand guard and defend him (and maybe shake and roll over, while he's at it), then he's going to be using her name a lot. It should be a good one.

He cycles through the names he remembers of dogs from the Soviet space program--Laika, Belka and Strelka, and... something that translated as _starlet_. Okay, so his memory of mid-twentieth-century Soviet canines is a little rusty. He gets to Cosmo the Spacedog and spends entirely too long trying to remember if that was a real dog or a comic book character before he gives up on that avenue.

They move on while Keith mulls it over, Krolia taking the lead and blazing a trail through the foliage. This, too, strikes Keith as very Hollywood, and he takes a moment to consider whether he's actually stepped into a movie while Krolia glares at a particularly stubborn thicket and contemplates their best course.

The wolf pup wriggles in his arms, and Keith reluctantly lets her down. He's afraid she's going to run away--that's what any other wild animal would do, isn't it?

But she stays close, bounding around his feet and snapping at the strange, bright insects that dot the air. Keith thinks they're insects, or at least close enough for the label to stick. He hopes they don't bite.

For a while as they hike, Keith tries to come up with ordinary dog names, but none of them seem to fit. He can't call her Spot or Patches or Fido, and Rover just makes him think of Pidge. He can't steal that name. Not when losing Rover so obviously upset Pidge. He almost settles on Shadow, because it _fits_ , and because it's _there_ , but it doesn't feel right.

They find a stream after an hour or so, and both Keith and Krolia spend a solid minute staring at it. Keith, at least, is wondering if it's potable, and whether the odds that it's not outweigh the fact that Keith hasn't had any water in... how long has it been by now? Hours, easily. Possibly days.

The wolf shares none of his reservations, bounding straight into the water and sneezing as water goes up her nose. She shakes her head, backing toward the shore, and suddenly in a flash of light she's pressed up against Keith's legs, growling at the stream. Another moment and another flash, and she's back in the water, snapping at the droplets she sprays up with each bound.

"She'd... probably know if there was something funny about that water, right?" Keith asks, deciding that he really shouldn't be so surprised that his space wolf can teleport. His space cat is a giant sentient robot, and that seems far more unlikely than teleportation.

Krolia arches an eyebrow at him. "We know absolutely nothing about the biology of these creatures. Even if she could tell how clean this water is, there's nothing that says safe for her is safe for us."

"Are we going to get much choice, though?" Keith waits for an answer, then shrugs. "If I get sick, you can say you told me so."

"If you get sick, I'll be far too busy making sure you don't die to gloat about being right."

Keith's lips quirk upward, but the lure of the water is too strong, especially with the wolf splashing around like that. He crosses to the bank a short distance beyond the splash zone and drops to his knees. The water is clear and cool in his cupped hands, but still he stares at it for a moment, watching it run out between his fingers until he has to gather a new handful to drink from.

It tastes amazing. Not quite as good as finding fresh-flowing water in the desert back home after a long day of hiking, but close.

He drinks not quite enough to satisfy, then sits back, forcing himself to wait a moment instead of gorging himself on water that may or may not actually be safe. The wolf's still playing in the water, though it's intermittent now as she keeps stopping to drink only to turn and attack a ripple that catches the light just so. He wonders if he was ever that happy and carefree. Before his dad died, maybe. He was so young he doesn't remember much.

"Yorak," Keith says, and when the wolf looks up at him, he knows it's the right name.

A few feet away, Krolia goes still. "What?"

"Yorak." Keith gestures to the wolf. "That's what I'm going to call her." He waits, nervous, for either approval or irritation. He... Well, he knows about as much about Galra naming conventions as Krolia knows about human, so there's always a chance that he's just offended her by naming a wolf after her favorite uncle or something.

It's just--he likes the idea of it. Maybe Yorak was a terrible name to give a human child living on Earth. Keith can't imagine how much teasing that would have earned him. But still, it's the name his mother chose for him. It means something--means more than Spot or Shadow ever would.

Krolia lifts one shoulder and bends to take another drink. "If that's what you want."

It's so hard to read her. Not that Keith has an easy time reading anyone, but with Krolia it's worse than most. She's as stoic as Kolivan, and Keith suspects even Lance would have a hard time guessing what she's thinking. Keith's stomach drops at the thought that she might not like the name, after all, but surely in that case she would have said something?

He sighs, turning back to the wolf.  
  
Toward Yorak.

She bounds toward him, splashing water ahead of her, and Keith laughs as he lifts a hand to shield his face.

"Come on, Yorak," he says, scratching her behind the ear. "Let's go see what there is to eat around here. I'll bet you a bone it's better than food goo."


	2. Familiarity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for discussion of character death (specifically of Shiro's clone.)

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

They stay on this barren planet only long enough to rest and to make sure that Shiro's okay to travel. He's been fading in and out of consciousness all day, but Coran says he mostly just needs rest. None of them know what happened to his arm, how the metal spread so high, but it probably saved his life. He would have bled out otherwise. Or, well, they could have used the cryopod in that case, but they only have the one, and they have no way to fix it or recharge it if something goes wrong. The lions should be able to power it, but they've never had to before, and everyone agrees it's best to save it for emergencies.

Besides, the way things are now? Shiro will recover. (Keith notes that Coran doesn't go so far as to say he's fine. Just because none of his injuries are life-threatening doesn't mean Keith didn't give him a beating in that fight.)

It's so hard to make himself distinguish between Shiro and his clone. Whatever Haggar did to make him, she obviously gave the clone Shiro's memories. He thought and acted like Shiro--the stubbornness, the way he piled stress on himself, the way he cared, _so much_ , about his team. Sure, he and Keith fought, but Keith has never been one for rose-tinted glasses. He won't tell himself that those fights wouldn't have happened if the "real" Shiro were there.

Shiro's clone stopped himself at the end, too. He stopped Haggar. And Keith can't stop thinking about the look on his face when he realized what he'd done.

Maybe it's a mercy, that the clone's soul, or at least his consciousness, didn't survive. Coran confirmed it, just before they tried to bring Shiro back, but Keith already knew. The body was dying, but the person he had been was already gone. At least this way he doesn't have to suffer the guilt of what Haggar made him do.

"Is it weird that I miss him?" Keith asks Yorak. They sit together in on a maintenance catwalk in the Black Lion's core. Ostensibly, Keith is here to check over her systems--a physical check to make up for the fact that he's new to this bond and can't communicate with Black as clearly as he once could with Red. That's not entirely a lie, but he connected with Black in the last battle--with Shiro's help, sure, but it doesn't matter. Keith knows that Black is in good shape.

Reasonable shape.

Hunk's already looking at her busted thruster, and once they get that back online, they'll be good to go.

Off into the unknown.

It'll be slow going, without a wormhole, which will mean long stretches in their lions, but Keith doesn't mind. It might be nice to get a break from the restless energy of the group.

That's why he's in here, after all. He slept inside Black last night, while most of the others made camp outside. He missed them, of course, and it's not like he minds the company, just--it's a lot. Two years in the abyss. It wasn't without its danger, and he and Krolia had plenty of conversations, both practical and personal, and Yorak has more energy than any of the paladins.

But two companions is a lot more manageable than nine people, a wolf, a cow, the mice, and Pidge's trash nebula pets. Keith left, at first, to compose himself, and he returned outside for dinner, but as everyone else came out of the shocked stupor the battle with Lotor had left them in, it quickly became too much for Keith. It would have been too much on any day, but after fighting Shiro, after watching his clone fade away and learning that Shiro himself had died _months_ ago, after connecting with Black and seeing across whole galaxies for a brief moment of brilliance, after fighting Lotor and drowning in the Quintessence field and helping to destroy the one place he might have called home--

He couldn't handle the noise. The motion. The overlapping conversation and never-ending stream of questions and the eyes on him that seemed to expect something he didn't know how to give.

He wanted to be closer to the friends he hadn't seen in years.

He needed space.

So he turned in early and made excuses to stay away from the group, and now he's here, deep in the Black Lion, talking to his pet wolf about his grief for someone he's not sure ever even existed.

"I mean, there's no way to tell if he was a person in his own right, independently of Shiro, right? For all we know, he was just a bundle of memories and programmed responses Haggar wove together with her magic. He might not have even been sentient."

Yorak lifts her head and huffs at him, and Keith hunches over her.

"Yeah... I don't believe that, either." It's easier to think that the person who died was just a hollow shell, but _easy_ is rarely _right_. "He was real. Real enough that he didn't deserve to die. But I don't even know who he was, if he wasn't Shiro. Am I really mourning _him_ , or am I just scared of the thought of _Shiro_ dying? Dying forever, I mean." The clone's face swims behind his closed eyes, panicked and broken. He was so _scared_ , at the end.

He buries his face in her fur and breathes, feeling the tears waiting just under the surface of his composure. They haven't gone away since the adrenaline of battle wore off, but he's getting better at keeping them locked away. The others are already worried enough about how weak Shiro is right now; they don't need to have their other black paladin breaking down on the job, too.

There's a knocking on the metal somewhere far overhead, and Keith reluctantly puts on his helmet, unmuting the comms. "Yeah?"

"Your thruster's all fixed up," Hunk said. "Or, at least, as fixed-up as I can make it with limited supplies. It should hold for a good while, but if we get into another fight like yesterday before we have a chance to resupply, all bets are off."

"Let's hope we don't get into another fight like that _ever_ , okay? I don't want to make a habit of almost destroying reality itself."

Hunk laughs, the sound surprisingly light given the circumstances, and Keith feels some of his gloom lift. "Aw, man," Hunk says after his giggles taper off. "I forgot how funny you are. It hasn't been the same without you around, you know. Sucks what we had to go through to get here, but it's worth it to have you back."

He says it so casually, not even pausing as he continues on to detail the repairs he's done, but Keith's mind sticks on the words. He knew the team probably missed him, in an intellectual sense, but it hadn't ever sunk in. That he has people who miss him. That he _was missed_. He's too choked up to answer right away when Hunk asks how things are looking inside, and Yorak lifts her head to nuzzle at his chin while he struggles to steady his breathing.

"Looks fine," he says. "I'm just finishing up in here and then I'll be out."

"You got it, boss man," Hunk says. He disconnects, and Keith pulls off his helmet with a shaky sigh.

"Guess we should get moving," he tells Yorak, who waits until he stands to move. She sticks close to him as they make their way back to the access hatch in the cockpit and from there out into the open, where the others are passing around ration bars from one of the crates loaded into the Yellow Lion. "We're ready to go, sounds like?"

Coran nods, tossing a bar at Keith. He grimaces as he takes the first bite--it's hard as a rock and basically tasteless, but he's had worse. This was light enough to pack a large supply, and it'll keep for as long as they need it. Hunk grabbed some of the other non-perishables, but they'll have to ration their real food, hopefully supplement it with whatever they can find on worlds they visit on their way back to Earth.

Really, this won't be so different from the last two years. At least they have the lions now. And the bayards.

"I grabbed a portable star-map before we, well..." Coran trails off, then forces a brighter smile to make up for the slip. "We've got our heading, so I guess we'll just have to get moving and hope for the best."

"The lions move faster than most ships," Pidge puts in, hopping up on a crate and eyeing Keith's ration bar with distaste. "Faster than the EMDrive is supposed to be, actually, so we're better off than we'd be with even hypothetical human tech, I guess? Point is, we'll make good time, but space is vast on an incomprehensible scale. It would take us years to get back to Earth without the castle to make wormholes."

Keith scowls. "And we need the plans your dad has to build a new castle."

Pidge nods. "Which is why we're not aiming for Earth--not yet. We'll head that way, but our goal right now should be to try to get within comms range of either the Blade of Marmora or the rebels. They both have FTL tech that'll get us home faster than our lions--even if it's not as good as true wormholes."

This last bit seems to be for Coran's benefit, as he looks ready to jump in with a condescending statement about primitive modern technology. He deflates at once, and Pidge grins.

Keith finds it harder to be so cheery about their situation, but they at least have a mission now. Pick a direction and fly until they get more than static on the radio. Easy enough.

Keith takes Krolia and Yorak with him in Black, at least for this first leg. Lance has Kaltenecker, Pidge the mice and and the fluffballs, and Romelle goes with Hunk. That leaves Coran to go in Blue with Allura, taking Shiro with them--if he takes a turn for the worst, they'll be the ones best suited to helping him, Coran as their resident medic, Allura with her Quintessence healing.

It's not a perfect distribution--Lance is going to get lonely all alone in Red sooner or later, so they'll probably rearrange next time they find a planet to set down on--but for now, and considering Shiro's condition, it's workable. More than workable. It's familiar, at least for Keith. Just him, his mom, and his dog, alone in the Black Lion for the next few days as they head for the first planet Coran has marked on the star charts.

Not even really alone, compared to the last two years. He can talk to the others whenever he wants, and he can mute the comms if it gets to be too much.

It'll be fine.

* * *

**Two Years Ago**

* * *

The first few days are a blur. They figure out what on this creature is edible mostly by trial and error, and Keith spends the second night shaking and sweating and throwing up his dinner while Yorak leans against his side and Krolia keeps watch. She's fine, which either means this is the fruit Keith found on a tree near the night's camp, or she has a higher tolerance for whatever's in the fish they caught.

Krolia doesn't push him to move on the next day, but after a few hours of trying and failing to get to sleep, he gives up and gets them going again. They need a more permanent shelter than the clearings they've used so far. Keith isn't sure if it rains here, but he knows there are predators, so at the very least they need somewhere defensible.

It's another few days--Keith forgets how many--before they find the cave.

"Cave" might be to generous a term. It's a little rocky hollow in what might be part of the creature's... shell? The ground inside is mostly flat, sloped gently up toward the back wall so if it does rain the water won't pool in here. The roof curves over the small space, and the side walls curve forward, creating a shelter big enough for the three of them to lay down with room to spare for supplies and a fire pit. They spend the first day gathering moss to make beds and a couple of the broad, bluish leaves put out by the stumpy sort of trees in the area. It's the closest they're going to get to blankets unless they can catch something that has a large enough pelt. Fortunately, the nights so far have been mild, and their armor was made to weather the elements.

After that, Krolia teaches him to make spears--for hunting and fishing, yes, but also for defense. "A sword is a fine weapon for battle, but out here we want something with more reach. Wild animals can be extremely dangerous at close range, especially if they're venomous or if they hunt in packs. Better to keep your distance."

She teaches him the proper way to hold a spear, how to thrust, how to fashion a cross-guard to keep bests from running right up the shaft. She shows him how to properly throw a spear, in case anything tries to corner him in camp. Krolia still has her pistol, of course, but she has only two spare powerpacks, and Keith is supposed to keep his Blade as a last resort. Better to lose a spear, of which they keep a dozen on hand in the cave, than their only sword.

It's fascinating; he had no idea his mother had such extensive knowledge of wilderness survival. (She only laughs when he asks. "Kolivan must not have got to that part of your training yet. Be glad. It is a brutal lesson, and one our agents rarely have use for.")

More than what she has to teach him, though, Keith lives for the moments when he gets to show off the things he already knows. How to set snares, how to start fires, how to track the animals that pass by their camp. A lot of what he learned in the desert on Earth doesn't carry over to a forested alien beast in the Quantum Abyss, where sun and stars are inconsistent at best and none of the local flora and fauna is familiar.

Krolia seems impressed nonetheless, and Keith swells at her praise.

He falters a week into their stay in the cave, when Krolia announces that she's going away for a few days.

"We can't sustain ourselves on roots and nuts forever," she points out, "and the river is too far away to keep depending on fish to supplement our foraging."

This, at least, is true. There's a stream a quarter hour's walk away where they get their water, but the only fish Keith has ever seen there are tiny minnow-like things that wouldn't be enough to satisfy Yorak, let alone Keith or Krolia. The river where they've been getting their fish is nearly three hours away, which makes fishing a full day's task--and even smoked, the fish can't keep long. They have no refrigeration out here, no salt to preserve their meat.

"Okay," he says, reluctant. "So we start hunting. There must be small game around here. Rabbits or squirrels, or whatever the local equivalent is. I don't see why you need to make a whole big trip of it."

"I need to take stock of our resources. See what our options are. If there are any salt deposits or saltwater bodies nearby that I can collect from, we can cure our meat, which will let us hunt larger game and create a stockpile of food, in case something happens and we can't go out hunting for a time."

"Why don't I come with you, then?" Keith asks. "Two eyes are better than one."

Krolia shakes her head. "It will be faster if I go alone. Besides, I don't want anything moving in here while we're gone."

"But--"

"I'll be back soon, Keith."

She reaches out a hand, like maybe she wants to hug him, or to kiss his forehead like she did in the memory he saw of her on the day she left. But she hesitates, pulling her hand back, and settles for a curt nod instead. Keith glares at the trees after she goes. He's tired of feeling more like a burden than an asset, but if she wants him to guard the cave, then that's what he'll do. Follow orders. Prove himself worthy. Just like he's been doing with the Blade for months.

He sticks to the routine as best he can: gather food. Bring it home. Tend the fire. Fetch water. Cook what needs to be cooked. Carve a new spear to add to their stash. (You can never have enough spears.)

It's not like he hasn't been alone before. He's fine.

His palm is sweaty on the handle of the stone knife they use in making the spears as he whittles the tip of the spear to a point. This knife isn't as sharp as Keith's Blade, but that might be a good thing. The Blade has a tendency to lop off the tip of the spear with a single careless swipe, and Keith is tired of having to start over.

He doesn't need Krolia. He doesn't need anyone. Never has.

He keeps sharpening the tip, trying to get something that will pierce thicker hides than what the spears have had to contend with so far. Spear fishing is one thing, but if they run up against a predator with thick skin or, god forbid, an armored hide? They need something that can stand up to the challenge. They've experimented with stone spearheads, but the only vines they've found so far make for weak rope, which means these spears are good for a single strike, at best.

He's been alone before. Spent an entire year alone in the desert when he thought Shiro was dead. What's a couple days now that he has Yorak for company?

His palm and wrist are aching now, his other hand raw from times his knife has caught on the wood and yanked it like sandpaper across the hand holding it still. He keeps going, though, frustration channeling itself into each swipe of his blade, each curl and chip of wood that falls to his feet, until he's left with a spear far too thin and brittle to be of any use.

With a roar, he turns and hurls the spear out into the clearing in front of the cave. Sitting as he is and twisted awkwardly to aim out into the open, he can't put much force behind the throw, and the spear flops to the ground just a few feet away. Keith glares at it, debating going to get it just to throw it more decisively into the trees.

Yorak creeps up to him, whining softly, and he sags back against the wall at once.

"It's okay, girl," he says, reaching out a hand to her. She sniffs it, then licks it, then climbs onto his lap, curls up, and tucks her nose under her tail. "What?" he asks. "Don't tell my you're babying me now, too."

Yorak lifts her tail just long enough to give him an innocent look, then settles in again, huffing out a breath. She may just be a pup, but she's not exactly small, and his knees ache with her weight after just a few seconds. He shifts, crossing his legs, and she slides down into his lap easily, seemingly unperturbed by the jostling.

Smiling, he rests a hand on her head and leans his own back against the rock wall. As beds go, he's had better, but Yorak is a warm reminder that he's not alone this time. Not completely.

He'll make it through this, because that's what he does.

He survives.


	3. Flashes

* * *

**Two Years Ago**

* * *

The flashes don't come as often anymore. Krolia says it's an artifact of the creature they've hitched a ride on--either its Quintessence or something in the atmosphere it creates dampens the effects of the temporal flux. Keith still sees them as flashes in the sky, sometimes white, sometimes yellow or orange. They're not very noticeable during the unpredictable periods of brightness they call daytime, but if they come in the dark, they're usually enough to wake Keith from a dead sleep as the world, for an instant, turns bright as noontime.

The light may still reach them, but the temporal effects don't. Or if they do, they're incredibly weak. Once or twice Keith has found himself thinking of a memory seemingly for no reason--the first time he flew a simulator at the Garrison, late nights stargazing with his dad--and only noticed the change in light when the flare was over. More often, the flashes bring with them waves of overpowering emotion, either good or bad.

Maybe it's all in his head. Maybe not. Either way, Yorak is there after each flash, sometimes teleporting from a hundred yards away to reach him in the blink of an eye. He's not sure if she's seeking comfort or offering it, but he's become so fond of her in such a short time that he doesn't question it. Some day a really powerful flash is going to hit, sweeping him up in a vision like the ones he experienced out in space, and he'll be grateful Yorak's there to watch over him until he returns.

The prospect of getting washed away by one of these flashes does scare him, especially now that he knows there are predators in the area. (He caught one snooping around the camp, a burly thing with tusks, and scared it off with a well-aimed spear.) But it's an abstract fear, like getting bitten by a venomous spider or getting separated from Krolia. It's a possibility, and it would be a problem, but the odds of it happening are low enough to wipe away any anxiety he might feel.

More than the visions, he dreads ordinary dreams. It's been a month, and he's already torn apart the vision he had of a dead-eyed Shiro a million times in his dreams and stitched it back together in as many ways. Sometimes he has to fight Shiro, sometimes rescue him. Sometimes it's not Shiro he's fighting at all, but a monster that wears his face like a mask.

Sometimes the only thing that survives the warping of the dream is the sense of dread, and he finds himself wandering the Garrison, the hallways all deserted and the classrooms boarded up. (Sometimes it's not the Garrison, but the castle, or the Blade headquarters, or a building that feels familiar but doesn't look like anywhere he's ever been.) He gets the sense, in these dreams, that he's searching for someone, but he can never remember who.

Each time, he wakes before he finds them.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

The journey lasts an eternity. Three days, maybe four--they get a little lax with their timekeeping towards the end--but it feels like ten times that. Even Keith is tired of the sparse accommodations. The lions have cots in the cockpits, but they're meant in case of emergency and are too narrow and too rigid to be comfortable. For food they have only the ration bars, and when the cramped quarters get to be too much, their only option is to go to the cargo space, which is only about the size of the training deck on the castle--smaller for Red and Green.

Lance has it worst. He's alone, for one thing, so he can't play cards like Hunk and Romelle do whenever they stop to rest, and he can't spar like Keith and Krolia. All he can do is talk, hang out with the cow, and try to keep up his skin care routine with minimal amenities.

Beyond that, though, he's in the Red Lion. Keith knows better than anyone how restless she gets when she has to hold herself back, and as long as they're all flying to together, slow and steady like a goddamn tortoise squad, she most definitely has to hold herself back. (Keith still sometimes feels slow in Black, and keeping pace with Yellow is practically torture.) Lance mitigates the strain by going out to scout every couple of hours. He _calls_ it scouting. Keith thinks it might just be turning Red in a random direction and letting her run wild for an hour so he can get a little bit of peace and quiet.

But Keith isn't going to be the one who puts an end to it. He'd have done the same.

Still, when their destination finally appears on the scanners, they all breathe a sigh of relief and pick up the pace. Lance surges ahead, calling out, "I'll go scout, _seeyouontheground_ _bye_!"

"Lance--" Keith starts, but he's already gone, and Keith just sighs. "Pidge, Coran, anything dangerous waiting for us down there?"

"Nothing in the records," Coran says. "Thin atmosphere, but breathable. Not much sunlight, so the ecosystem is rather underdeveloped, and it gets a little chilly overnight."

"Scans are clear, too." Pidge sounds bored. "Honestly, though, how many of us would take a fight over another day in the lions?"

There's a grumbled chorus of consent, and then Shiro chuckles. "You think this is bad? Try flying to Kerberos in a ship the size of a postage stamp. This is practically a luxury cruise in comparison."

Keith snorts. Shiro's been making a steady recovery over the last few days--still weak, and still sleeping more than the rest of them, but clear and cheery at other times. He's the real reason Keith wants out of here. A pale face on the comms screen and a slightly muffled voice popping in from time to time can't possibly soothe Keith's lingering anxieties.

Lance has found a clear blue spring by the time the others catch up, and he's already pulled a sample for the portable scanners stocked in each lions. (They have a startlingly comprehensive survival kit inside a series of hidden compartments, as it turns out, and Keith can't help being peeved that no one ever gave a complete rundown of what they had to work with. All Coran ever mentioned was the medical supplies and the emergency rations.)

"Looks good!" Lance calls, waving the scanner, which glows a bright and cheery green. He already has a water bottle out to fill up. He's always preferred the faint mineral taste of spring water, ever since they first got out into space, and Keith has to say he's with Lance on this one. The others can stick to the filtered, recycled water in the castle-ship and lions (well... just the lions, now), but Keith will be glad for something a little more refreshing, as long as it's available.

Lance's water bottle is full by the time the others make it out of their lions, and Lance caps it as he sprints toward Hunk and jumps on him, dangling from his neck until Hunk obligingly scoops him up, bridal style.

The pang of jealousy catches Keith by surprise, cutting him to the core and leaving him queasy, and he turns away, busying himself with his own water bottle until he can be sure nothing shows on his face. He ignores Pidge's shrieks of delight as Lance goads Hunk into a game of chase that Yorak soon joins in on, and he ignores the conversation that strikes up between Romelle, Allura, and Coran. They've spent a lot of the trip so far talking about the Altea Allura and Coran knew, and about the Altean colony Romelle comes from. Freeing those people is probably their next priority after building a new castle-ship, and that gives Keith plenty to think about as the laughter and shouts multiply.

Eventually it gets to a point where he can no longer justify ignoring the rest of the group, so he stands, taking a long pull from his water bottle as he goes to join Shiro in the shadow of a rocky pillar. Shiro looks leagues better than he was when Allura first brought him back--he's upright, and he's awake, and he smiles as Keith joins him.

"It's nice to breathe some fresh air again," Shiro says. "Even if it is thin."

Keith glances at the helmet sitting on the ground beside him. Shiro's still in his armor--all of them are, though he's seen the others in their casual clothes on and off the last few days. Keith himself switched over to his Blade armor after the first day. It's way more comfortable than the rigid polymer pieces of the paladin armor.

He has to wonder if the armor, in Shiro's case, is there as an emergency oxygen supply, in case the thin atmosphere proves to be too much for him in his current condition.

Keith hopes he's not that frail. He doesn't look that frail. A little pale still, maybe, but that might be the hair. Keith hasn't adjusted to it, and he stares at his feet to keep from staring at Shiro.

"Yeah," Keith says. "I was starting to feel a little cooped up, too. What about you? Feeling better?"

Shiro shrugs. "I'm getting there. Still a little... off. Not sure if that's the body or the dying."

Keith presses his lips together. "Either way, I think it's understandable. You've been through a lot, Shiro. It's okay to take some time to recover."

"So everyone keeps telling me." Shiro wrinkles his nose, then leans back against the stone, lifting his hand to his side and pushing out a pained breath. "You know, I never realized how much we counted on the cryopods to gets us back on our feet right away."

"Yeah." Keith rubs his knee, remembering old aches. He's had his share of injuries these past two years, so he can sympathize with the frustration of healing the old fashioned way after getting used to alien tech. "If you're hurting that much, I'm sure we can convince Coran to put you in the pod for an hour or two. Not like any of the rest of us need it right now."

Shiro shakes his head before Keith is even done speaking. "No, it's fine. We need to conserve the charge, just in case it does lose power."

Keith wants to argue that, but Coran is headed their way with a packet of bandages and some Altean healing salve.

"What do you say we take a look at your wounds while Hunk's cooking, eh?"

Shiro comes very near to a pout, but his expression brightens at the mention of Hunk's cooking. "You mean we're not having more ration bars?" he asks, not quite dry enough to disguise his hope.

Keith grins--though he's honestly looking forward to it, too. He missed Hunk's cooking even before he went to the Quantum Abyss.

"Yeah, yeah," Coran says, pretending to be offended. (No one ever gets excited when he tries to cook for them, after all.) "But first, we need to change your dressings."

Shiro sighs but goes along with it, and Keith finds himself volunteered as an aide as Coran helps Shiro out of his breastplate. With Keith's help, Shiro pulls the skintight undersuit down to his waist, and Keith's stomach turns at the extensive bruising.

He kind of expected it, considering his own state, but it's different seeing it on Shiro. Knowing that _he_ did this. The missing arm and gray hair might be the most obvious signs of Shiro's ordeals, but this is different. This is...

This is too poignant a reminder of what happened. Of what Haggar did, both to Shiro and to his clone. What _Keith_ did. He can't wash away his own part in this, especially when it's staring him in the face. There's a particularly brutal bruise, mottled red-violet and the first hints of a yellowish green.

Keith's first thought is a broken rib, and then he wonders if Shiro's brief stay in a cryopod was enough to fix it completely. Probably not, if it's still bruised like that. God. No wonder Shiro's moving so slow.

As Coran dabs ointment on this bruise, Shiro grunts and flinches away, leaning into Keith. Keith barely resists the urge to grab him by the shoulders and hold on, and Shiro lets out a shaky laugh as Coran moves on to lesser bruises.

"Sorry," he said. "You'd think I've never been in a fight before."

"I was there, Shiro," Keith says softly. "I know it was bad. You don't have to pretend you're not hurting."

Shiro goes still. He's sitting upright again now, trying to cover for his moment of weakness, but Keith feels his proximity like an electric current in the air. All he has to do is lean an inch and they'd touch.

Keith doesn't know if that would be agony or solace, and he's scared to find out.

So he sits, frozen, while Coran continues his ministrations. Shiro doesn't say anything else, but Keith catches him looking more than once, his face pinched like he wants to ask something but is afraid of how Keith will take it.

Considering the topic of conversation, Keith isn't sure he wants to hear the question. He thinks again of that last, agonized look.

He wonders if Shiro remembers any of that. He doesn't know how cloning works, or what the after effects of transplanting a soul into someone else's body might be, but it seems as likely as anything else.

After a couple more minutes, Coran passes the healing ointment to Keith and orders him to take care of the rest of the bruises while he checks on the metal growth that's overtaken Shiro's right shoulder. Whatever it is, it seems inert without the rest of the arm, but Coran and Pidge are both keeping an eye on it, just in case. Keith sees to the bruises with great care and not a little hesitation. He doesn't want to hurt Shiro, but more than that, it feels dishonest to steal these touches under the guise of helping Shiro.

He can't help it, though. Something about the texture of human skin feels foreign under his hand, never mind that it's not any different than Keith's own skin. Shiro closes his eyes and leans into Keith's touch, and Keith finds himself close to tears once more. _You shouldn't trust me,_ he wants to say. _I'm the one who did this to you._

He keeps his mouth shut, though, and draws out the process of applying the ointment as long as he can, just to have a few more minutes of contact. When Hunk finally interrupts with a call that food's ready, Keith hastily screws the cap back on the jar of ointment and shoves it back at Coran, who gives him a funny look as he runs away. He claims a seat on the edge of the group, and Yorak lays on his feet as though she can feel the aftershocks of so much touch jittering in his nerves.

Hers is a calming weight, and Keith rests a hand on her head for a moment in thanks before he eats the food Hunk made.

Even with freeze-dried meat and canned vegetables, it still tastes like home.


	4. Closest Thing to Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note for those of you who may have seen the interview with Lauren and Joaquim: I don't care what canon says, this fic is not running with the idea that Shiro "absorbed" Ryou and they're one and the same now. They were different people, and as much as it pains me, Ryou died.
> 
> It's going to become clear over the course of this fic, but to be up front with it: Shiro has none of Ryou's memories. Ryou is not "still in there somewhere." There are existential and moral questions to be raised about the way things worked out, and I'm not going to shy away from them. They aren't quite the focus of this fic, but they will be addressed.

* * *

**Two Years Ago**

* * *

Things get easier after Krolia finds salt formations out at the edge of the jungle. Now they only need to hunt about once a week--Keith usually takes that job, since Yorak is the best of them at tracking game and she never leaves his side for more than a few minutes. Then when he gets home, he'll crash while Krolia butchers the animal, cooks a portion, and begins to make the rest into jerky. He's glad, if he has to be stranded out here, that it's with Krolia. Like Keith, she's not one for chatter, so they pass most days in a companionable silence.

It's a good system they have here. Peaceful, even. Keith can't imagine it would be so smooth of it were one of the others out here with him--except maybe Shiro, and even then, he has a feeling Shiro would go prodding at topics Keith would rather just ignore. Like his own impending death.

"It seems like we may be here for a while," Krolia says, chewing on a strip of jerky while she makes a few more notes on the back wall of their cave with a piece of charcoal. Keith will admit, he'd never considered charcoal a necessity in survival situations, and he's honestly kind of surprised that Krolia knows how to make it, but it's helped immensely with mapping out the jungle. "We should start thinking about ways to improve our camp for the long term."

"Long term?" Keith takes a bite of his own jerky, then tosses the rest of the strip to Yorak. Krolia gives him a look; she wants the wolf to hunt for herself so they don't have to worry about food, but Yorak's still a puppy, and hasn't figured out that she can go hunting by herself. She'll catch small birds (often by teleporting to them and grabbing them out of the sky) while they're out hunting together, but otherwise, she won't eat if Keith doesn't give her food.

Besides, is just a little jerky.

"How long do you think we're going to be here?" Keith asks. The question is accompanied by a faint sense of unease. It's already been six weeks, which means Kolivan probably assumes the Galra caught up to them and either killed or captured them. Best case scenario, he's told the paladins, and they've started sweeping Galra prisons in search of him. Worst case, they all think he's dead.

Keith has been on the other side of this equation; he was there for an entire year after the Kerberos disaster. He never wanted to leave someone else with those questions.

"A few months, perhaps?" Krolia shrugs. "There's really no way to know. I've been trying to track our progress, but the ripples in spacetime make that difficult."

Keith goes cold all over, and he hardly notices when Yorak steals another piece of jerky right out of his hand. "Ripples?"

Krolia just hums, tapping the wall with a knuckle. "I want to build a defensive line around the camp. Something to keep us from getting swarmed. Something to keep out scavengers in the event that we're both gone for an extended period."

Keith barely hears her, his head still ringing with the realization that being stranded in the Quantum Abyss isn't like being stranded on an ordinary planet. "Quiznak," he mutters. He'd forgotten all about the gravity wells that had plagued the first leg of their journey--and there's no excuse for that. He should have considered this sooner.

"Keith? Is something wrong?"

"Is something _wrong?_ " He laughs. "No, why would anything be wrong? I just realized I might get out of here-- _if_ there's a way out--only to find out all my friends are dead!"

Krolia frowns. "I'm sure you're a valuable member of the team, Keith, but I hardly think your friends are going to die without you."

"What? No!" He's about to continue, but his heart seizes up again at this new fear. "Shit, what if they do need me? What if they die because I wasn't there for them?" He turns to Yorak, wondering how powerful her teleportation is. If she takes him back to the castle now, it might not be too late.

"Keith." Krolia settles her hands on his shoulders. He jumps at the touch--she hasn't been this close to him since they navigated the asteroid field on the outer edges of the Abyss. "Calm down. I'm sure your friends are fine."

"Fine is a relative term!" Keith shoots back, and he's oddly satisfied to see that it confuses Krolia the same way it confused so many of his foster parents. "How long has it been for them?" He has a sudden, vivid image of emerging from the abyss ten thousand years in the future to find that everyone and everything he's ever known is long dead and gone. He's never considered himself the kind of person who needs other people to get by, but he flinches back from the notion just the same, his palms sweaty and his stomach tied up in knots.

God, how do Allura and Coran do it?

Krolia still looks confused.

"How long have we been gone?" Keith demands. "From their perspective?"

Krolia folds her arms, looking thoughtful. "Difficult to say. Probably less than a day."

This brings him up short. He freezes, heart still pounding, and wonders whether he misheard her. "A _day?_ "

"Possibly longer than that," Krolia admits. "Though I doubt anyone has noticed our absence yet. Kolivan, perhaps. That man notices everything."

Keith shakes his head. "No. That's--That's not right. Wouldn't it have been months for them? Years?" He holds himself back from admitting the full scope of his fears, especially in the face of Krolia's utter calm.

She stares at him, perplexed, and Keith feels his face growing hot.

"What?" he demands. "You don't need to be a theoretical physicist to know how gravitational time dilation works. This close to those gravity wells, time has to be running slower for us than for the rest of the universe. Maybe--maybe not by a lot, but..." He trails off, squirming. He's not panicking anymore, but he feels like he should be embarrassed and he can't figure out why. He wishes she would stop looking at him like that.

Understanding flickers in Krolia's eyes. "Ah. Of course. Your planet hasn't discovered Quintessence yet."

"No..." Keith staggers as Yorak butts up against him. He crouches down to wrap an arm around her (and because it gets him out from the direct line of his mother's stare.) "So?"

"The gravity in this region does affect spacetime, yes, but that is not the only factor at work. It's not even the main factor, not in an area as Quintessence-rich as the Abyss."

Keith looks up at her, gauging her sincerity. She's never shown an inclination toward practical jokes, but this sounds like exactly the sort of thing Coran would say just so he could get a laugh out of it when one of the paladins repeats his lie later. "Quintessence affects the flow of time?"

"It does. In most cases, it causes exposed individuals to experience time more quickly than a bystander. It's what allows our ships to travel near the speed of light without suffering the effects of time dilation, to say nothing of warp drives and wormholes. All of those devices function, in part, on Quintessence. Healing devices often take advantage of the same principle to greatly reduce recovery time."

"Wait... are you saying the cryopods make us age faster?"

"Yes, though the healing nature of Quintessence mitigates the effects. You would need a great deal of exposure to a healing pod to notice any adverse effects--and even then, it's usually localized. A few early wrinkles, or gray hair."

"Like Shiro?"

Krolia shakes her head. "I couldn't say. I'm given to understand that human hair regularly changes color in response to adrenaline."

Yorak tries to lick Keith's face, but he ignores her, staring instead at Krolia. "Where'd you hear that?"

"Your father," Krolia says. "I've lost track of the number of times he told me I was going to 'give him gray hair' when we went out flying."

Keith ducks his head, biting down on a grin as Krolia frowns at him. "Huh," he says, feigning innocence. "Must have been a hell of a ride." He scratches Yorak behind the ears as she tries to lick his face again, but she's done with games and jumps on him, knocking him over. He laughs, and it helps to release the last of his tension. "So the Quintessence here is strong enough to fit two months into a single day?"

"If these readings are accurate. The flashes amplify the effect, and they come frequently enough that we're almost always running on further compressed time than we would be if it were only the ambient Quintessence at work." She pauses, a lopsided smile softening her expression. "You're taking this better than your father did."

Keith snorts. "Yeah, well, Dad was... He didn't get to see the things I've seen."

Krolia's smile falters, and Keith turns his head so all he can see is Yorak's canine grin. He knows he'll need to tell Krolia what happened eventually--she was married to Keith's father; she deserves to know--but that's not a conversation he's prepared to have today.

Thankfully, she lets the issue drop, and they settle back into silence as they get to work on the fence.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

Coran was right: this place does get cold at night. They have a fire going, and Allura sets up wind-breaks from their emergency supplies--ten-foot square particle barrier-like things that produce a low level of heat--while everyone else digs out thermal blankets. But the cold still drives everyone to a huddled mass when the sun is fully down.

Mostly everyone.

Shiro lasts another half hour before retreating into the Black Lion--mostly due to Coran pestering him about his recovery, but Keith knows him well enough to see that he was miserable before that. Shiro insists that he'll be fine inside alone, since the others are so sick of sleeping in their lions, and no one's volunteering to go with him, though their guilty expressions say they're all considering making that sacrifice.

Pidge falls asleep first (for possibly the first time since Keith has known her), curled in on herself and leaning up against Hunk's side. Once Lance starts to nod off on Hunk's other shoulder, Hunk gives in and stretches out on the mound of blankets they've amassed. Allura pulls Romelle over, and the cold must override Romelle's hesitations, for even though she barely knows any of them, she joins the dogpile with hardly a second thought.

Krolia has taken the first watch, and Coran is inside checking on Shiro, which leaves Keith the odd man out, sitting by the fire with Yorak staring up at him with big, sad eyes. "If you want to join them, be my guest," Keith mutters, shooting a sullen look at the pile.

He knows that no one would complain if he joins. They might even be happy.

That doesn't mean it doesn't feel like an intrusion. No one's specifically asked anyone to join in, except Romelle, indirectly, but he's still mad that they didn't ask _him_. If they'd _asked_ , he wouldn't still be arguing with himself about it.

He turns his back on the group as Hunk begins to snore and the mice finally abandon their efforts to spy on Shiro. They scurry toward the paladin pile and disappear between blankets, clothes, and hair, and Keith looks pointedly out over the barren landscape visible through a gap between wind-breaks. This place is the polar opposite of the jungle where he spent the last two years, but it's more familiar than the intertwined limbs and easy breathing of the group behind him.

An unfamiliar longing settles into his bones and pulls at him, yanking his attention back toward his friends every time one of them shifts. His eyes burn, and Yorak still stares at him like she's asking for permission to join in on the cuddles.

Keith stands, Yorak mimicking the motion with a bounce in her step like they're going to play. Krolia looks his way, but he only nods toward the gap between wind-breaks and starts walking. "I'm going to check the perimeter," he says. "I'll be back within an hour."

If she thinks it's strange that he's being so cautious on an uninhabited world, or that he's taking an hour to secure a camp that's barely thirty feet across, she doesn't mention it. She watches him until he puts the wind-breaks between them, and then his shoulders finally relax.

He's glad to be alone, even if it's only for a little while. He needs the time to think.

* * *

It's even colder outside of camp, without the warmth of the fire or the partial temperature regulation of the wind-breaks to cut the chill. Keith has his Blade armor, which can stand up to a vacuum, but his cheeks sting in the frigid wind, and he's sniffling before long. He's never been one for the cold.

But he keeps moving, Yorak keeping pace beside him. He'd seal his helmet, but he doesn't want to waste the only fresh air he's liable to get for another four or five days.

Whatever. He'll just finish his patrol, and hopefully that will leave him tired enough to pass out before he can obsess over the paladin pile waiting for him back in camp.

He lasts half of his estimated hour before he finally admits that humans just weren't built for this climate. He glances down at Yorak, who's watching him with sharp-eyed interest, and sighs.

"All right, fine. Let's head back."

Yorak perks up as soon as he turns around and she teleports a few feet ahead, waiting for him to catch up before jumping away again. Apparently she's cold, too. Keith tugs his hood lower as the wind tries to sweep it back and trudges onward. He's not as tired as he wants to be, but the warmth of camp might be enough to lull him. Hopefully.

Coran is waiting for him a short way outside camp, a thick cloak wrapped around his shoulders. His ears have gone red with the cold, but he otherwise seems unbothered by it.

He's holding the diamond that is all that remains of the castle-ship, its soft blue glow lighting up the night. Keith's hearts sinks at the sight. The castle was the last thing Coran had of the past, the last thing that connected him to his family. There wasn't much time to mourn it in the moment, and since then Keith has mostly missed the resources it afforded them, but it only takes one look at Coran' s face to remember that this was an emotional blow, too. For all of them, but especially for Allura and Coran.

"Aren't you cold?" Keith calls, scratching Yorak's ear before she thinks to teleport to where Coran sits on a rocky spire that rises from the earth at an oblique angle.

He gives a start anyway and puts the diamond away as he flashes a smile. "Aren't _you_? You've been out there a while."

Keith shrugs. "I guess. What are you doing out here?"

Coran gives him a knowing look--the same look, Keith realizes with no small amount of unease, that Coran wore earlier, when Keith freaked out over applying ointment to Shiro's bruises.

Without a word, Coran scoots over to make room for Keith on the spire and pats the rock invitingly. Keith casts about for an excuse to pass up Coran's offer, but there's nothing that won't just make him seem rude so, with a sigh, he sits down, pulling one foot up on his seat while Yorak curls up in front of him.

"It's been a long week."

Keith laughs before he can stop himself. He can't help it; it's just such an understatement that he doesn't know how else to respond. "You could say that."

Coran leans backward, tilting his face up. The stars are incredibly vivid out here. Clearer than they were even in the desert on Earth, and more colorful. That's probably the atmosphere on this planet, but whatever the cause, it's a mesmerizing sight. Or it would be if Keith weren't freezing his ass off. "I wanted to thank you for coming back when you did, and for stepping up when they needed you to lead."

A jolt runs through Keith, and he stares at Coran, his brow furrowed. "I wasn't just going to leave you to Lotor's mercy."

"I know. But I know it's not easy for you. Flying the Black Lion. Leading this team."

Keith's shoulders pull up, and he looks toward the horizon. "It's not what I'd call ideal, no. But I'll live."

Coran is quiet for a long moment, long enough for Keith's mind to wander to tomorrow. They can't linger here, but the others are going to need another break, a real one, soon. They can't stay cooped up in their lions indefinitely. And someone's going to have to go with Lance this time. Maybe Shiro's recovered enough that he or Coran could switch? If not, Keith will have to talk to Krolia about rotating out of Black. Keith can get by with just Yorak a lot better than Lance with just Kaltenecker.

"You've been gone for quite some time," Coran says. "Haven't you?"

Keith turns, surprised, but he can't hold Coran's gaze for long. "A while," he says evasively. No one's asked yet how long Keith was gone, not directly, and Keith is reluctant to admit it. He doesn't want to invite pity.

"It shows."

Keith scowls. "Is that a compliment? Or an insult?"

"It's an observation. You've come into your own since the last time we spoke. It's more than just self-confidence. I've never seen you so calm in the face of so much chaos."

Instantly, Keith tries to shake off the words. "Keith Kogane" and "calm" are two concepts that should never be mixed. He's the hothead, the trouble-maker, the guy with anger-management issues. He was the Garrison's next rising star, once upon a time, but he's also the kid who almost landed Shiro in serious trouble because he couldn't let an insult slide without hitting back (literally.) He's the one who gets in fights with Lance and charges off into battle and always ignores Kolivan's orders, even if that means jeopardizing the entire mission.

But... maybe Coran is right. Last time he flew Black, he felt like he was drowning, battered around by the demands of his team and the war while his gut kept pulling him in a million different directions. This time was different. This time he knew what he needed to do, knew what the others needed from him, and even when the waves hit he managed to keep his feet under him.

Keith snorts. "Shiro always says _patience yields focus_. I guess all that waiting around in the abyss was good for something, after all."

"Perhaps so." Coran's voice has gone soft, and he clasps his hands in his lap. "Now, forgive me if I'm overstepping here, my boy, but it seems to me like you could use a hug after all you've been through."

"I..." Keith wets his lips, completely transfixed as he stares at the side of Coran's face. "What?"

Coran turns, his eyes crinkling with a smile. "A hug. Altea knows _I_ can hardly get enough of them these days." He leans back, holding up his hands. "No pressure, of course. I only thought I ought to offer, in case no one else had beat me to it."

"Uh... No. No, you're the first." Keith stumbles over the words, at a loss for how to even begin to respond to an offer like this. Hugs aren't something that pops up like a bellhop offering to take your bags. Coran somehow managed to make it sound natural, but Keith can't help feeling that whatever he says, it's going to make things awkward.

Coran settles back as though he's ready to pretend he never said anything at all, and all at once Keith panics.

"Yes."

Coran blinks. "I'm sorry?"

Cringing, Keith scratches his cheek, only to hiss in pain as his nail finds the edge of his burn. He forces his hand down and stares at Coran's chin so he doesn't have to look him in the eye. "A hug would be... nice. If-If you're offering. So. Yeah..."

Coran breathes out, soft and affectionate, and the next thing Keith knows, he's being wrapped up in a pair of thin, strong arms and a heavy cloak that dampens the night's chill. Coran holds him close, his jaw prickly with the stubble he hasn't bothered to shave away. Too much hassle while they travel, he says.

It reminds Keith of his dad's hugs.

He tears up, and ducks his head into Coran's shoulder to hide it, though there's no one here but Yorak to see. It's an ingrained response by now--don't let anyone see you hurting; they'll only take advantage of it. He's learned that lesson well enough--from bullies at school, from instructors at the Garrison, from the other kids at the group home where he was living when he met Shiro.

Keith focuses on his breathing. On inhaling slow and steady and not in hiccuping sobs. On exhaling smoothly through his nose so Coran doesn't catch any hitch or wobble. Once or twice a sniffle escapes him, but he hopes he can pass that off as a side-effect of the chill. His eyes burn, but he squeezes them shut and clings to Coran like a lifeline. He feels as though he should be ashamed of his response to something as simple as a hug, but he can't be. Not now. With Coran's arms around him, it's like the electrical storm inside him has finally found a way to ground itself. All that unspent energy rushes out of him through Coran, leaving Keith feeling spent.

Coran doesn't pull away.

It's hard to say how long it's been. Too long, surely. When Coran offered a hug, he couldn't have meant for Keith to break down on his shoulder, but here they are, and Keith needs far longer than this to put himself back together. He waits for Coran to pull back, every sense alert for the first clue: a loosening of the arms around his shoulders, a clearing of the throat, anything.

But Coran just holds on, even as Keith caves in on himself, curling down until Coran's chin rests comfortably atop his head. His breathing steadies, his muscles relaxing, and still he waits for Coran to get fed up with his clinging. His fingers ache where he has Coran's cloak clutched in his fists, savoring this moment for as long as it lasts.

In the end, it's Keith who pulls away first--sooner than he wants to, if he's being honest, but far, _far_ longer than he should have let it drag on. He risks a glance at Coran's face, expecting a twitch of irritation or of relief, but Coran just smiles, then returns his gaze to the sky.

"I'm sorry," Keith says, then hurries on, because he realizes it sounds like he's apologizing for the hug. "I mean for the castle. For what happened to it." He leans his forehead on his fist, cursing himself for a lack of tact. "I--I know it meant a lot to you. I'm sorry I couldn't save it."

"What? Oh, don't bother yourself about that." Coran's trying too hard to be cheery, which is perversely comforting, because it means he probably wasn't faking being okay with the hug. Apparently recognizing that he's not convincing anyone, Coran deflates. "I wish we could have saved it, too, but you can't blame yourself for that. We all knew it was the only way."

Keith starts to argue that he was the acting black paladin; he was the one who had the final say, and it was his responsibility to get them all out of there in one piece--but he just doesn't have the will to fight this fight now. All he wants to do is sleep, or maybe to go back to hugging.

"Still," he says, wrapping his arms around one leg. "I'm sorry. It--I know it was just a ship, and I should focus on the fact that we survived, but... It _wasn't_ just a ship. It wasn't just where we trained and planned and stored our lions. We _lived_ there. It was the one place we were always safe, the one place we could relax and just be kids for a while." He pauses as the light changes, and looks over at the diamond, which Coran is cradling in his lap again. "A lot of that was down to you."

Coran looks up, and then away. "Oh, I didn't do all that much."

"Yes, you did. We didn't always realize it, but you kept that ship running basically single-handedly. The castle wasn't just our base of operations--I should know; I spent enough time at the Blade's headquarters. The castle was... Well, it was just about as close as I've come to having a home since my dad died."

Coran squeezes his shoulder, and Keith's mouth runs dry at the conflicting sensations the touch elicits. Pain and gratitude, unease and longing.

"Funny thing about home," Coran says softly. "It hasn't got much to do with the place you're in. More so the people you're with."

Keith looks up, a smile working its way onto his face, and the diamond's light dances in Coran's eyes as he returns the smile.

"You still have a home, Keith. You just need to let yourself have it."

* * *

Keith sits with Coran a while longer, enjoying the silence that follows their conversation. There's no expectation in that silence, no sense that the peace won't last long. It's only the cold that drives them back into camp, where Keith nods to Krolia, glances one last time at the tangle of sleeping paladins, and then heads up the ramp into the Black Lion. Shiro's been alone long enough that Keith is sure he'll appreciate the company.

Yorak cocks her head to the side halfway up the ramp, an almost imperceptible ripple making its way through the bioluminescent markings on her face, ears, and flanks.

Keith tenses, reaching for his knife, and hurries up into the cockpit, where he finds Shiro pale and sweaty, tension pinching his brow. His breath comes in shallow gasps, and he whimpers in his sleep, his eyes moving under their lids like he's caught in a dream--and not a pleasant one, from the look of it.

"Shiro," Keith whispers, sheathing his knife and moving closer to the cot. He's careful not to touch Shiro, not wanting to startle him. Without the cybernetic arm, there isn't much chance of Shiro hurting Keith if he wakes up in a panic, but he might very well hurt himself, and that's the last thing he needs. "Shiro!"

Shiro stops breathing altogether for a moment, and Keith drops to one knee, reaching out automatically before he hesitates again. Yorak beats him to the punch by teleporting to Keith's side from across the cockpit. The flash of blue light snaps Shiro out of his dream, and he stiffens, wide eyes staring at the ceiling for a long moment before he seems to become aware of where he is. His face crumples at once, and he turns toward the wall, covering his face with his hand as his breath turns ragged.

"Shiro?" Keith asks, letting his hand fall to the edge of the cot. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Shiro says, with a little less conviction than he usually manages, but still without a waver to his voice. "Sorry if I scared you."

Keith huffs, sitting down with his back against the wall near Shiro's head. There's another cot on the opposite wall, but he thinks he might bed down right here, just in case Shiro needs him again in the night. "You didn't scare me. Bad dream?"

Shiro is quiet for a moment, then sighs. "Yeah."

"You... want to talk about it?"

"Not really." Shiro rolls over, and it strikes Keith again just how tired he looks, the dark circles under his eyes even more pronounced next to his gray hair. Everything about him looks washed out, like a faded old polaroid, but the reds and purples of those shadows stand out in stark contrast. "But you're not going to let me say no, are you?"

Keith hunches his shoulders. "I'm not going to force you to talk about it if you really don't want to. Just don't bottle it up because you don't want to be a bother."

Without a word, Shiro rolls over and reaches out, and his hand on Keith's shoulder is an achingly familiar weight. Keith reaches up at once to lay his hand atop Shiro's, waiting for Shiro to voice his thoughts, or not.

"I dreamed I was back inside Black," Shiro whispers. "Back in the astral plane, or whatever it was. I didn't... It wasn't a _bad_ dream, not like some of the ones I've had. It just felt so real. Even when I woke up, I thought for a second that I really was still trapped there. It's been an... adjustment, having a body again. Being _alive_ again. I keep expecting to find out that none of it was real."

Keith squeezes his fingers. "This isn't the first time this has happened, is it?"

"It wasn't as bad when I was in Blue," Shiro says, which doesn't really answer the question. "I think it's just that I can sense Black so clearly here. More clearly than I ever could before."

Turning, Keith searches Shiro's face. "What do you mean?"

"She's... She's inside me now. Not that she wasn't before, but it's different since she pulled me into her--her spirit, or whatever it was. I don't... I don't know how to explain it. It's like that feeling you get when someone's watching you, except it's constant, and it's inside of me."

Keith tries to imagine what Shiro must be going through. Losing his body, spending months trapped inside his lion with no way to contact his friends. Then coming back to a body that's almost-but-not-quite the one he lost, this one down an arm and beaten to a pulp.

Even without Black's proximity to remind him of the time he was lost, it's gotta be rough.

"You want to move back to Blue?" Keith asks. "It might help you sleep better."

Shiro shakes his head emphatically. "No. I'm not--I don't know when I'll be in a condition to fly again, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I'm not going to let myself be scared of being inside my own lion. I'll... I'll be fine."

He doesn't sound sure of himself, and Keith doesn't blame him. He does, however, realize that Shiro won't back down from this one, even if it means spending the whole night in a cycle of nightmares and panicked awakenings until he winds up in an exhausted stupor by the time morning rolls around.

Keith's eyes slide to Yorak, and an idea occurs to him.

"You want me to see if Yorak will sleep up there with you?"

Shiro's eyes trail down the cot to where Yorak sits with her head up on the edge of the thin mattress. "Your dog?"

"She's pretty cuddly," Keith says. "She's never slept on anyone but me, but she hasn't had much chance. We might as well try, if you want to. The weight might help keep you grounded, right? Not like you had cosmic wolves running around in the astral plane with you."

"No. Can't say I did." Shiro stares at Yorak a moment longer, then relents. "It's worth a try."

Keith nods, then turns to Yorak, wondering what's the best way to entice a space wolf to jump up on an emergency cot with someone who is, essentially, a stranger.

As it happens, he doesn't need to do anything. Shiro's barely agreed to the experiment before Yorak climbs up onto the cot, slotting herself in between Shiro's hip and the wall, her back half draped across his legs and her head within easy reach of his hand. Shiro blinks, hesitantly scratching her behind the ear, and she leans into the touch.

"That was easy."

Keith grins. "Yeah. She's pretty smart. Seems to know what I'm thinking better than I do, half the time."

Shiro chuckles, but his eyes are already drooping, the motion of his hand slowing until it's just resting atop Yorak's head. She closes her eyes, clearly intent on staying put for the foreseeable future.

Keith stays up a little while longer, watching until he's sure Shiro is asleep before he steals the thin mattress and thinner blanket from the other cot and makes a bed for himself on the floor beside Shiro. With luck, he won't be needed in the night, but he wants to be close just in case.

He's tired enough that he falls asleep within moments of lying down, and for the first time in a long time, he sleeps straight through till morning.


	5. Not Alone, But Lonely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time: Keith, overwhelmed by the activity of the team and the way they all settled into a paladin pile to sleep, went on a walk. He had a talk with Coran, who gave him a much-needed hug, before heading inside, where Yorak gladly climbed up on Shiro to help ground him as the Black Lion's presence tossed him about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm juggling a couple different projects right now, so updates are going to slow down a little bit from here on out. I'm going to plan on an update at least every Thursday, hopefully with extra updates thrown in here and there when I have the time. Thanks for reading!

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

It's an odd feeling, waking up fully rested. Nights in the Quantum Abyss were unpredictable, so Keith rarely got enough sleep even without the insomnia, nightmares, and occasional visions of another time keeping him up. And ever since returning, it's been worse. Too loud in his lion, and in all the wrong ways. Too warm, too claustrophobic. And his mind makes up for the vision by turning over everything he could have done better in dealing with Lotor and with Shiro's clone. Worrying about everything that still needs to be done.

But he sleeps through the night this time--even sleeps in a little, then wakes to find Shiro and Yorak still asleep on the cot beside him. They look so peaceful that Keith spends a few minutes just watching them breathe. He didn't expect to find this kind of peace so soon after everything, but maybe he was just being pessimistic. There's hurt they have to deal with, to be sure, but they're resilient, and they have each other.

He tries not to disturb the sleeping pair when he gets up, but he's not even halfway across the cockpit before Yorak lifts her head, then teleports to his side.

Shiro startles awake, but his eyes are bleary from confusion rather than panic, and Keith breathes a sigh of relief as he returns and crouches beside the cot.

"Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you up."

"'s fine." Shiro runs a hand down his face. "We leaving?"

"Not yet, I don't think. I only just woke up."

A smile tugs at Shiro's lips. "At least I'm not the only one who's being lazy."

Keith gives his leg a shove, but he's smiling too. It feels like forever since he's seen this side of Shiro. The only jokes he tells any more have the bitter taste of gallows humor. "Shut up. You want to go outside, or should I bring back some breakfast?"

"No, I'll come."

The others are already up when Keith and Shiro stumble out into the bright midmorning light. It's something of a relief, to not have to face the sight of them all draped over each other. Coran and Krolia are drooping; they probably stayed up all night and figured they'll catch a nap when the group heads out. Hunk's making breakfast, as expected, and Keith busies himself with helping the team pack up while they wait for Hunk to finish.

After they eat, they all split up to load up the lions. Coran's going with Lance this time, albeit not before extracting a promise from Shiro that he'll speak up the second he starts to feel ill. There won't be any planets between here and their next stop, almost six days out this time, but Coran can monitor most things remotely and go back to Blue if he's needed.

"You going to be okay?" Keith asks Pidge as she's herding the fluffballs back inside. "You were alone last time. I don't mind switching with you."

Pidge rolls her eyes. "Keith, all I'm going to do in my downtime is try and work out the bugs in some of my programs. You send someone with me, and they're gonna be bored as hell and irritated cause I keep ignoring them."

It's about what he expected, but Keith feels better hearing it from Pidge directly. She'll probably want company eventually--maybe if they have a shorter jaunt or if she gets stuck on her coding--but for now, it's one less thing for him to worry about. He nods, letting her go, and turns back toward Black, where his mother is already waiting.

A hand comes out of nowhere, punching Keith lightly on the shoulder before looping around his neck and pulling him over. Over, and ever so slightly down.

"Hey! Keith!"

"Lance." Keith mouth has run dry, and he can't think of much to say. Can't think of much period with Lance's arm brushing against his neck above his collar. His arm throbs where Lance hit him, and something in his gut screams at him to run, to break contact, to put space between them so he can breathe. His hand ignores his gut and reaches up, stopping just short of latching onto Lance's wrist.

"Thanks."

It takes Keith's mind several seconds to catch up to his ears, and in the mean time he just stares at Lance, perplexed.

"Thanks...?" he finally says. "For what?"

Lance's eyebrow inches up as though to say, _Really? You need me to spell it out for you?_ "For being super cool and awesome when you swooped in to save the day? Repeatedly?"

Keith squirms out from under Lance's arm, all but gasping when he comes free and his lungs remember how to take a full breath. (He misses the touch at once.) "You don't need to thank me for that. Any one of you would have done the same for me."

"Well, no, yeah, you're right." Lance rubs the back of his head, his gaze sliding to the side. "Maybe thanks isn't the right thing to say. I just... We missed you. A lot. And we never really said that, considering everything happened all at once when you got back. You warned us about Lotor, saved Shiro, then came back in time to save us all from Lotor again all in, like, four hours. I dunno, it just seemed like we shouldn't take that kinda thing for granted."

"Oh." Keith's mind is blank again, not because of the touch he can still feel burrowing beneath his skin, but because he never really expected recognition for what he does. It's kind of his job at this point. It's everyone's job. They're paladins. They protect each other.

Lance's face is flushed now, irritation pulling at his mouth. "Sorry for making it weird. Forget I said anything."

"No, Lance--" Keith grabs Lance's wrist without thinking, and hesitates a moment too long before dropping it and crossing his arms. "It's not weird. It's... nice." He offers a smile, thinking that if it wasn't weird before, it certainly is now.

Thankfully, Lance doesn't call him out on his lack of social graces. He just smiles, his eyes lighting up, and slaps Keith on the back. "Good to have you back, buddy."

With that, Lance is off, and Keith hurries back to the Black Lion, his skin itching with the memory of Lance's touch.

* * *

**Two Years Ago**

* * *

Keith has reached the point where he sleeps through the flashes, even the strongest ones that bring full visions with them.

His dreams do weird things with the visions, and it's a coin-toss whether or not that's a good thing. Last week he dreamed of the first time Shiro showed him the flight sims at the Garrison--or maybe one of their early flights on Shiro's hoverbike, which he left in Keith's care during the Kerberos mission. It's difficult to place the visions sometimes, especially if they aren't particularly clear to begin with.

Whatever the vision should have been, it quickly turned into a nightmare, a red-violet spark igniting in Shiro's eyes as his face warped with a cruel smile. He twisted the controls hard to the side, and Keith caught a flash of reddish soil racing up to meet them just before he woke up.

Tonight, the dream is more pleasant, but it leaves him every bit as shaken. He dreams that his father is waiting for him back on the castle-ship. He and Coran are discussing nonsense--something about which soda makes for the best cow shampoo--when Keith and Krolia make it home. Keith's father's eyes light up at the sight of them. He kisses Krolia, gives Yorak a vigorous scratch, and then, finally looks up at Keith, the smile on his face impossibly fond.

Keith wakes slowly, and for a long, disorienting moment the dream is real. He's back on the castle-ship. (Probably fell asleep on the couch in the lounge, he thinks blearily. That would explain the crick in his neck.) When he opens his eyes, both his parents will be there, talking together and laughing like they do in so many of the visions.

The call of an alien bird snaps him out of the fantasy, and the truth settles over him like a shroud. His father is gone. And he's still stuck out here, no telling when or if he'll see his friends again.

Krolia is already awake, though it's still dark. It's possible that this is an unusually long night (the longest to date lasted thirty hours, followed by just four hours of light and another eight of darkness), but from the shadows under her eyes and the weariness in his bones, he doubts either of them got more than a couple hours of sleep.

He joins her by the fire, Yorak close on his heels. She rests her head on his lap as soon as he's seated, and Krolia pokes at the coals with a stick.

She seems distracted. Did she see a vision, too? They don't always line up for the two of them, and even when they do, they rarely see the same scene. But from her silence and the slump of her shoulders, Keith has a feeling whatever she saw wasn't any more cheerful than Keith's dream.

Keith hesitates, watching the sparks swirl, then looks up at Krolia. "Want to spar?"

She blinks at him. Blinks at the shadows cloaking the forest. Looks back at him, this time with one eyebrow quirked. "Now?"

"It's better than just staring at the fire for the next three hours, isn't it?"

Krolia shrugs, driving the smouldering tip of her stick into the earth. "Unarmed. I'm not going to risk stabbing you because neither of us can see what we're doing."

It's ironic, really. Keith inherited some of Krolia's Galra traits--her reflexes, some markers in his Quintessence that allow her Blade to recognize him. But he takes after his father far more, including, unfortunately, a human's lackluster night vision. That leaves them in an awkward position. Krolia would do better without the campfire, but Keith needs it to see anything at all. They keep it burning as a compromise, but it means neither of them is at their best.

But Keith doesn't mind. It's not swordsmanship he wants to train right now. It's not that he's worried about his skill with a spear. He just wants to move. To burn off some of this restless energy.

They start slow, Krolia walking Keith through some of the drills she's been teaching him. She's closer to his size than most of the Blades--not human-sized, even at a stretch, but not Kolivan's goliath frame. Because of that, she's had to adapt, and her style augments Keith's own mostly self-taught amalgam.

Keith pushes from drills into a spar after just a few minutes, his thoughts spiraling until he needs more of an outlet. Krolia steps back at first, and he thinks she's not going to engage, but either she recognizes Keith's emotional state or the flash left her similarly unsettled. She launches into an attack of her own, and after that all Keith can think about is keeping up with her onslaught.

It's nearly light by the time they stop. Yorak has settled in by the fire to watch, seemingly confused by the display. She tries to play with Keith when he trudges over in search of water, but at a signal, she lies down and lets him lean against her. He closes his eyes, arms and legs throbbing from blocking Krolia and having his own strikes blocked in turn. He's almost tired enough to sleep again, and he curses the light for returning now, of all times.

Then again, the sun can come up all it wants. Keith's more relaxed than he's been in weeks. His body aches and his skin echoes hits that probably won't even leave a bruise, but it's all a comforting sort of ache. The badge of improvement. The mark of a night well spent, as long as sleep was off the table. With his mother nearby, quietly stitching together a sling to store their food overhead where pests and scavengers can't get it, and with Yorak dozing off behind his back, Keith feels... content.

He's asleep in five minutes and sleeps until the afternoon light reaches the back of the cave.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

They fly for a little over fifteen hours that day, stopping now and again to stretch their legs or grab a ration bar. They won't keep up this pace, Keith knows, but as long as everyone's itching to put distance behind them, he's going to take advantage of it. Red's still restless--Green, too, this time, along with Keith himself (though Black is content to cruise along at any speed)--but it's not as bad as the first leg of this interstellar road trip. Lance and Coran are always talking or laughing when Keith does his periodical check. Red went off for a sprint once today--just once, where she was up to once an hour by the end of the first leg.

When they finally stop for the night, Keith does one more check in with the team, because he figures he should, just in case there's a problem. It's what Shiro would do, he thinks, except that Shiro is already asleep. Krolia seems to approve, too.

They head down to the cargo hold after dinner to spar, but Keith's heart isn't in it. He keeps thinking about what might be happening in the universe without Voltron there to step in. Has the Empire heard what became of Lotor? Have they held another Kral Zera, or has Sendak just assumed control? How many of Voltron's allies have already been attacked?

Does the universe think that Voltron was defeated?

It's more than just distraction that's getting to him, though. He doesn't want to spar. The impact of each blow isn't as satisfying as it normally would be. It doesn't feel like he's improving himself or being productive or working out his stress.

It just hurts.

After the third time Krolia throws him, he yields, and they transition into their cool down. Keith rushes through it, then goes back up to the cockpit in case any of the others needs him.

They don't.

"Is everything all right?" Krolia lingers in the doorway, her gaze tingling along his spine.

"I'm fine."

She's quiet for a long moment, then speaks again without moving. "If I did something to upset you, I'm sorry."

He stiffens, then turns to look at her. She looks uncertain, and more than a little guilty, because of course he had to go and make her think this is her fault. He always seems to be doing that. Taking out his issues on other people, even though he never means to.

He sighs, slumping in his seat and scratching Yorak behind the ear. "You didn't do anything. I'm just..."

Lonely.

It's a strange thing to be, now, when he has more contact with more people than he has for more than two years, but there it is. Keith is lonely. He misses Shiro's hand on his arm. He misses Lance draping himself across Keith's shoulders. He misses Hunk's laugh and Pidge's chatter and Allura's unexpected bursts of mischief.

He misses Coran's hug most of all, and his chest aches with relief when Yorak climbs up on the cot with him after he turns in for the night.


	6. The End Justifies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time... Lance thanked Keith for coming back and helping the team, to which Keith had no response. The paladins headed out again, rearranging slightly so that Lance wasn't alone for another leg of their journey, and after finding less satisfaction sparring with Krolia now than he did in the Quantum Abyss, Keith retreated to the cockpit where he finally admitted to himself that the real problem was, quite simply, that he's lonely.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

It's Pidge who finally brings it up. Of course it is. Of them all, only Hunk is nosier, and so far he's interested in all the complicated details. What happened? What exactly is Yorak, and where did she come from? (Is she a distant relative of regular wolves, or is this some extreme convergent evolution happening out here in the backwaters of outer space?) How'd he find Krolia, and is she really his mom?

Pidge's interest is far simpler, and all the more dangerous for it.

"How long were you gone, anyway?"

There's a rushing in Keith's ears, and he scrambles for an answer, a deflection, anything. He told himself he wasn't averse to telling his friends the truth, he just didn't want to shove it in their faces, but now that the conversation is here, he wants to back out. Change the subject. Mute the comms and pretend he didn't hear.

"I mean, I thought we had solidarity!" Pidge goes on, oblivious to his inner turmoil. "Short but fierce. Right?" She laughs, but it sounds strained, and it occurs to Keith that she's just talking to fill the silence, now. "I mean, I'm not going to pull a Lance on you or anything--"

"Pull a Lance?! What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you freaked out over, like, two inches."

"He's taller than me, Pidge!" Lance cries.

"Barely."

"Coran changed our numbers!"

Keith's been quiet for too long now. Hunk's staring at him, brow furrowed like he's caught the scent of a dirty secret and is debating the best plan of attack. A glance at Allura's feed says she's muted her comms, and she and Shiro are having a frantic, fretful discussion.

"Two years."

Silence. Lance and Pidge stop bickering, Pidge's sigh resigned but not surprised, Lance's eyes darting from feed to feed like he's wondering if he heard wrong. Hunk just looks like he wants to cry. Allura has gone still, her face impassive. Slowly, she reaches out to unmute her comms.

"Two years," Allura says. She sounds uncertain. "Remind me how long a year is?"

"About eleven phoebs," Pidge says. Her eyes never leave Keith's face. "You-- Are you okay, Keith?"

Is he? "I'm fine. _We're_ fine. It's not like I was in solitary confinement or anything."

The silence lingers, and Keith feels an itch growing beneath his skin. Shiro's sitting up now, leaning around Allura's seat to study Keith over the video feed, and Keith has an irrational urge to yell at him. At all of them. He's not fragile. He's not going to crumble away because he was gone for a couple of years. He lived through twice as long in an endless rotation of foster homes and the group home that kept taking him back when no one else would. He lived through a year in the desert when he thought he was well and truly alone, _forever_. The last two years were a vacation in comparison.

And yet.

"Shit," Lance mutters. "Keith--buddy, I--I had no idea."

"It's _fine_." Keith's hands ache from gripping the controls so tight, and his eyes burn with tears he refuses to acknowledge. "Those two years let us get to the colony and find Romelle so we could stop Lotor before he betrayed you all. I'd say it was worth a little while out in the jungle. Away from the war. With plenty of time to relax and hardly anything out for my blood."

He means it as a joke, even tries to force levity into his tone, but he knows it falls flat. He picked up his dry humor from Shiro, then left it out in the sun to bake. It's really no wonder everyone always takes him so seriously.

(Still, he wishes they would all stop looking at him like an abandoned puppy that just wandered in out of the rain.)

"So, uh..." Keith clears his throat, staring out at the stars so he doesn't have to meet his friends' eyes. "How long was it for you?" A curious flutter has taken up in his chest, and old fears begin to stir. How long did he abandon them for? How much have they had to deal with while he was off playing with his new pet and getting to know his mom?

"Not quite two months since Lotor showed up," Hunk says, then slumps backward and glances toward Romelle. "It's kinda weird, when you think about it. Lotor shows up and sweeps us all off our feet in no time flat?"

Romelle's expression is flat, her eyes hard. "He's good at that."

"Was," Lance says. "He's not going to be sweet-talking anyone else ever again."

He sounds like he doesn't believe his own words--and for his part, Keith _certainly_ doesn't. The barriers dividing the Quintessence field from the physical universe aren't as solid as any of them would like, and Keith wouldn't put money on them keeping Lotor contained, especially with the Sincline ships.

But it's hard to worry about that now, when he's sagging in his seat from the answer to the question that's plagued him for ages. Two months. He only missed two months. He's not sure if that's better or worse than what he feared. (He didn't think years, not after one glance at Pidge, still as short and gangly as ever, but he thought... He thought he'd have missed more.)

At least he came back quickly, from their perspective. He lost more time with them to the Blade than to the Abyss. That's... disheartening, to be honest. Looking back now, he can't remember why it was so important to him that he avoid the team at all cost. Sure, he needed to step down as a paladin, for the good of team, and, _sure_ , the Blade was a good place for him to go to still be useful to the war effort.

But he doesn't know, now, why he had to cut contact with his team. His friends. It all seemed so clear in the moment. Now he can only figure that he was afraid. (Afraid like he is now. Afraid to acknowledge that his friends have reason to pity him. Afraid to admit that the last two years _hurt_.)

But that's a hurt he can live with.

He has no choice. Not even the Quantum Abyss can make time flow in reverse.

* * *

**One and a Half Years Ago**

* * *

"So where do you think we're going?"

Krolia pauses in skinning their latest catch--some bizarre cross between an elk and a rabbit that should keep them fed for weeks, assuming they can get all this meat cured before it goes bad. It was Krolia's idea to start hunting larger game. She thinks she can make this work, after several months of practice with various curing techniques, and she wants to have the extra time for construction efforts on their camp. She wants to try to expand the cave. Add in a chimney so they aren't always choking on the smoke from their campfire.

"What's this all of a sudden?" she asks, refocusing on her work.

Keith shrugs. He's been tasked with cutting the meat into strips, which is fine, but he's been at this for almost an hour--and that after spending all day in a blind waiting for the right game to wander along. He's _bored._ "I was just wondering. Are we sure this is going to be worth it, in the end?"

" _Something's_ happening in the depths of the Abyss," Krolia says. "That Quintessence didn't happen naturally. We're still headed in the right direction, so there's no reason to worry."

Keith ducks his head so she doesn't see him roll his eyes. "Yeah, but I mean... What are we going to find? Where _did_ that Quintessence come from?"

"I couldn't tell you."

Keith works in sullen silence for a short time, his cuts sharp and uneven. He's not... He's not _angry_ with Krolia for not having the answers he wants. He's just _frustrated_. It's been six months already, if their timekeeping is accurate, and there's still no end in sight. He just wants to know that he's not wasting his time.

Yorak whines, wedging her head under Keith's elbow. She's grown quickly the last few months, from coyote-sized to wolf-sized--even a little large for the wolves Keith has seen in zoos and on half-remembered trips with his dad to the Gila National Forest--but she still acts like a puppy sometimes. Keith glances down at her and smiles, letting some of his frustration drain away. He sneaks a look at Krolia, then slips Yorak a strip of rabbit-elk meat.

Krolia sighs. "If you keep spoiling her, she's never going to learn to hunt for herself."

"I thought you didn't want a wild animal living with us," Keith says, trying to sound innocent. "Don't you think I should be trying to tame her? Especially by teaching her that attacking doesn't get her food?"

"If you simply _trained_ her, then we wouldn't have to worry about her attacking us _or_ stealing our food in the night." Krolia's tone is sour, but a smile tugs at her lips, and she goes on after a moment with a soft chuckle. "I'm not even sure how to go about guarding food stores against a creature that can teleport."

Keith grins. "Good thing she only ever comes to me when she wants food, huh?"

Krolia is definitely amused now, and Keith butchers another sizeable cut of meat before he circles back to the question that's been nagging at him all day.

"You think the Galra have some sort of Quintessence manufacturing plant here in the Abyss? I saw the druids running something like that once before."

"The Empire," Krolia says, distracted. "And I don't know. Perhaps?"

"I... What?"

"I said I don't know."

She's not looking his way, and Keith takes advantage of the chance to study her. He's used to unreadable expressions; it's been his experience that people's faces are inscrutable at the best of times and downright misleading at others, and he knows all too well that he's one of the worst offenders in that regard.

But Krolia elevates inscrutability to an art form. He thought, when he first met her, that she simply learned to control her face for the sake of her job. A spy can't have every twitch of her eye blowing her cover, after all. It made perfect sense that she would give little reaction to meeting her son deep in enemy territory, and even afterwards, he figured she just needed time to get out of the habit.

But it's been months now, and he's still hardly seen more than a hint of a smile from her, or a slight puckering of the brow when she's irritated or confused. He's studied her face every chance he gets (only when she's distracted with some other task, of course), but he still can't say for sure what the reason for her apparent lack of emotion is. Maybe she genuinely doesn't feel--or doesn't _allow_ herself to feel--much of anything. Kolivan is the same way, and it serves him well in the Blade. Or maybe it's not conscious. Maybe she just doesn't show emotion the way most people do. Like Keith.

Or maybe she doesn't trust Keith enough to drop her guard. That stings, but it's understandable. It takes Keith months to trust, too.

"The real question is who's behind it," Keith says, tearing his eyes away from his mother. "Haggar has plenty of secrets, so I wouldn't be surprised if she's working on something with Quintessence that's not common knowledge among the generals. But on the other hand, Lotor's not working with the Galra at all, so--"

"The Empire."

Keith stops again, his train of thought derailed by Krolia's interruption. "Why do you keep doing that?" he asks, struggling not to take it personally.

"Doing what?"

"Correcting me. We both know who I'm talking about."

She finally looks up, her sharp gaze unsettling. "I'm not worried about clarity, Keith."

"Then why...?"

"It matters how you talk about these things. You and I are Galra, too. The entire Blade is made up of Galra. All across the universe, millions of Galra live their lives just like anyone else. Some of them fight back against Zarkon's empire. Some just try to keep their heads down and survive."

Keith hunches his shoulders. "Well, yeah... I'm not saying those people are bad people."

"I know you're not, Keith, but we can't distance ourselves from the other Galra. Think about the message that sends. Most of the universe already looks at Zarkon's empire and sees a monolith. Most Galra already think that they have no choice but to make do under Zarkon's rule. They are Galra--even the ones who wish things were different still call themselves Galra. If we create a divide between us, how are we ever going to convince them that they have a choice?" She stops, then cuts free the last of the hide. "Zarkon thrives by creating that division. There are Galra, and there is everyone else. If we do the same, if we make it about _us_ and _them_ , we only strengthen Zarkon's position."

Her words leave Keith speechless, and he drops his eyes to his knife and the meat he's slicing up. He wants to tell her that it's not like that, that he believes more than anyone that Galra can be good, that he _wants_ to meet other Galra like Krolia and like Kolivan. Galra he can be proud of.

But he can't ignore the lurch in his gut when Krolia called him a Galra. It's true (half true), but he finds himself rejecting the notion anyway. He's not Galra. Not really. He has Galra blood is all. (It's the same thing, he tells himself. But it feels less daunting this way. Less intimate. Less threatening.)

Maybe she's right.

Maybe he needs to rethink how he talks about the Galra.

"Have you ever heard the story of the fall of Daibazaal?"

Keith looks up again, fleetingly, then returns his gaze to his hands. He's not sure where this change in subject is coming from, but he's not going to question it. "Yeah. I mean... Allura and Coran gave us an overview. Big tear in reality, Honerva experimented on it, some weird rift creatures showed up, then Honerva got poisoned by overexposure and died so Zarkon tried to bring her back by taking her into the rift, but that backfired and turned them both into evil zombies, and Voltron had to evacuate the planet so they could destroy the rift."

Blinking, Krolia lets Keith's summary sink in for several seconds, just long enough for Keith to start growing uncomfortable. "Well that's definitely not the story my parents told me when I was a child."

"Oh?" Keith tries not to let on how intrigued he is by the idea of his mother's old bedtime stories. (He wonders if he would have grown up hearing them, too, if things had gone differently.) "What, uh, what did your parents tell you?"

She smiles, and for a moment Keith wonders if she was hoping he'd ask. Then she's talking, and Keith is too busy trying to absorb every word to try to guess at Krolia's intentions.

"Daibazaal was a common fixture in many childhood tales. Sometimes someone went in search of it, sometimes its reappearance precipitated the events of the story, sometimes a survivor of Daibazaal appeared elsewhere in the Empire and made friends with the hero of the story. Sometimes it's as simple as the story being set on Daibazaal before its fall. I suppose the fact that we are a people without a homeworld would naturally make the home we once had that much more appealing."

"Yeah." Keith gets that, too. _Home_ has always brought with it a quiet longing that captivates him and burns him at the same time. Some days the pain is too much, and he shuts out the stories about the things he doesn't have, but sometimes it doesn't matter that it hurts. Sometimes he wants to live vicariously through the character on the page or on the screen. Sometimes he likes to pretend the same could happen to him.

Krolia remains unaware of the knot in his chest as she continues. "I've heard so many versions of what happened that even as a child I knew they were all just fantasy. Most of the stories had the Alteans destroying Daibazaal or taking it away from us with their magic, but my favorites were the ones where Daibazaal never existed in this reality at all. The ones that told us Daibazaal was a metaphor for all the disparate homeworlds of all the disparate peoples whose blood runs through the Empire today, and that rather than seeking to return to Daibazaal, we had to create it. I remember one story that even claimed there was no such thing as a Galra at all--though I'm sure Zarkon would have been furious to hear tales like that running around.

"There was another story, though. In it, Daibazaal was never destroyed... but it was abandoned. As the Galra people came into their own and discovered the secrets of deep space travel, we began to venture out, seeking new peoples, new experiences. There was always more to discover, and our people could not resist the call of the unknown. Little by little, our home planet emptied of people, until no one at all remained.

"Eventually, some of the wandering Galra grew tired of their voyages and returned to Daibazaal, only to find it gone. They say that in focusing too much on what we might claim as our own, we forgot our roots. Without our people, our culture, to tie it to this universe, Daibazaal retreated."

"Retreated?" Keith asks. "Retreated where?"

"Into the Unreal. A pocket dimension, perhaps, or some other space invisible to us here in the mundane." She pauses, glancing up at the sky. It's light out, but there is no visible sun. Just a broad expense of yellow-streaked gray sky that gives off enough ambient light to see by. "Maybe this is the place all those stories were talking about. Maybe we're headed for Daibazaal."

Keith glances up at the sky, then back at Krolia. He arches an eyebrow. "But Daibazaal is a real place. It's been destroyed, but it's still there. You can go visit it anytime."

Blinking, Krolia returns her eyes to the rabbit-elk carcass and moves on to butchering. "They're just stories, Keith. Until we reach our destination, that's all we have."

"Oh."

Keith falls silent, mulling that over. He hadn't realized she was trying to answer his question--or to use his question as a way to distract him from the restlessness that plagues him. It has the sound of a game, and it takes Keith back to his childhood. To road trips with his father to distant state parks and national landmarks. To passing hours in the car playing games like this. Making up stories for the people they saw at rest stops, playing I Spy, listening to his dad spin tales about fairies and bigfoots and other strange creatures rumored to live around wherever they were headed this time.

"Maybe it's not Diabazaal that's hidden at the center of the Abyss," he says slowly. "Maybe it's... Maybe it's Vekkora."

Krolia shifts, and Keith can sense her gaze on the side of his head, but he doesn't turn to meet it, and she doesn't say anything.

"Vekkora's... um... It's a hidden planet. The last refuge of peace and beauty in a war-torn galaxy. That's--I mean--That's what the stories say." He flushes, hunching his shoulders. He's never been good at telling stories before, and having his own long-lost mother as an audience doesn't really help. "The people of Vekkora are tall and strong. If they chose to fight, they would make fearsome warriors, but instead they spend their time exploring and learning. They're some of the most gentle people in the entire universe. They say it gets lonely, because they can't risk showing themselves to the armies fighting the war. But they're happy. They have their families, and they have the land, and... and..."

"And they have the stars," Krolia says. "Every night they climb up on the roofs of their humble homes and look up at those stars, and they dream about who might be waiting for them, somewhere out there in the night sky, staring back at their own stars and wondering the same thing."

A coal pops in the fire pit, the sound loud in the sudden silence. Keith risks a look up and finds Krolia looking back at him, her eyes as sad as he's ever seen them.

"My ship," she says, "was called the _Vekkora_. Your father used to make up stories about a planet by the same name. He told them to me because he knew they made me laugh on the nights when thoughts of the Galra Empire and its deeds left me with a bitter taste in my mouth."

Keith's throat tightens. Some combination of hurt and... and _something_ he doesn't have a name for. It's almost like longing, and it's almost like happiness, and it feels like there's been a piece out of place in his chest that's finally slid back into place. For a moment, he imagines growing up with both his parents there. For a moment, he lets himself imagine that his father is waiting for them at the center of the Quantum Abyss, still alive and just waiting to see them.

For just a moment, he lets himself dream.


	7. A Moment of Vulnerability

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time... Keith finally admitted to the team that he was gone two years from his perspective, though their pity makes him uncomfortable. A year and a half earlier, Keith and Krolia shared stories about the fantastical things they might see at the heart of the Abyss.

* * *

**One and a Half Years Ago**

* * *

He wakes slowly, his mind still halfway in his dreams. The cavern has the ghostly afterglow of a flash, and he knows that's probably what woke him, but he doesn't remember it invading his dreams. What little he can remember of his dreams is hazy and benign. Morning routines at the Garrison, he thinks. It's hard to say.

Krolia is sitting up by the mouth of the cave, her shoulders rigid, her gaze fixed somewhere outside their enclosure. There's no real need to sleep in shifts anymore, not with all the defenses they've built, but they still stagger their sleep schedule out of habit. Keith stays up later than she does, but he rarely wakes before dawn, unless dawn is considerably delayed. Krolia runs on her own internal clock, perhaps because of a life spent in space.

He tries, at first, to go back to sleep, as his body assures him he needs it, but his mind is spinning circles now. They're particularly mundane circles, tonight. Preparations for the next hunt, a mental inventory of their other supplies--do they need more salt yet? He can't remember; Krolia usually takes care of that.

When his mind finally quiets, it's not because sleep has taken him, but because his ears picked up on something that makes his heart constrict. It takes another few seconds for him to identify the sound, and when he does, he freezes, staring into the darkness afraid to move.

It's Krolia. Her breath comes in shallow, uneven gasps, barely audible. Keith keeps thinking that maybe it's just the wind, but then the rustling of leaves drops off and Krolia's shuddering breath fills the silence, unmistakable. Is she crying? Keith isn't sure, but he's afraid to let her know that he's heard. She's obviously trying to be quiet, which he can only assume means she's trying not to wake him.

Unfortunately, Yorak chooses that moment to try to wriggle under his blanket. Keith jumps as her wet nose brushes up against his hand, and Krolia turns toward him.

Keith tries to look innocent, like he only just woke up, but Krolia isn't buying it. She sighs, then scoots over, patting the rock beside her. Keith glares at Yorak, who happily steals his bed when he gets up and joins Krolia.

"Your father is dead," she says without preamble.

Keith swallows, his lungs growing tight as he realizes this must have been what her vision was about. "Yeah," he says simply. They've danced around the issue enough times that she probably already knew, so there's no reason to pretend otherwise.

Krolia is silent for a long moment, tossing another log on the fire. "I didn't realize you were so young."

Keith blinks furiously, the plain words catching him off guard. "Eight years old," he says, because what else does she expect him to say? It's been more than ten years for him. Most of the sting has faded by now. It's just another fact of his life, like the four foster families he rotated through before Shiro convinced him to apply to the Garrison, or like the fact that he broke Iverson's nose after the Kerberos disaster and got himself expelled. Facts. History. Polaroid pictures stuck up on a wall where they can't touch him any longer.

"What happened?"

"There was a fire," Keith says. "Our house. I made it out. Dad didn't."

It's not what she wants, and Keith knows it, but he can't give her what she wants. He barely remembers that night; he was half asleep when the fire started, and all he really remembers is his dad picking him up, wrapping him in his fireman's jacket, and telling him to cover his mouth and nose with his shirt. He wasn't even sure what happened to the house until five years later, at the Garrison, when Shiro agreed to go out flying and didn't question Keith's vague but insistent directions.

(There was nothing left, of course, nothing but the foundation, buried several feet deep in the sand, and the shack where Keith's dad used to go to listen to strange transmissions. Looking for aliens, he always said. Keith never realized he meant that literally.)

"I'm sorry," Krolia says.

Keith pulls his feet up on the stone and crosses his arms on his knees. "It's not your fault."

"I suppose not. But if I'd been there--"

It's the same thought that's plagued Keith on and off since he found Krolia. All this time, he thought he was an orphan. All this time he thought his mother had either died or walked out, which might as well be the same thing. He wonders what his life would be like if she stuck around and raised him. He wonders if things would have gone differently the night of the fire, if one or both of his parents might have made it out, too. He wonders if he'd have met Shiro, if he'd have gone to the Garrison, if he'd have become a paladin, or if they'd still be at home, living their lives.

That way lies bitterness and resentment, but he wallows in it for a long moment, silently cursing the universe for everything it robbed him of.

But resenting life never got him anywhere but deeper into the pit of self-pity and apathy. It took Shiro years to pull him out of that pit, and he'll be damned if he betrays that trust. (He came close, when they told him Shiro died, but even then he held onto his pride and his stubbornness, and he kept hold of that edge by his fingernails. He's gained ground since then, and he's lost it, but he's never hit bottom. He's not going to do so now.)

He begins, haltingly, to tell Krolia what he remembers. Not just of the end, but of the life he had with his dad. The stories and the games, the late nights stargazing and the hikes out into the canyons just because. In hind sight, he realizes that his dad always expected the Galra to return, and he was doing his best to prepare Keith for that possibility.

He tells her about the fire, and about the foster homes, though he doesn't linger on either, and he tells her how Shiro came to his school to talk about the Garrison, how that presentation sank a hook into Keith and spurred him on when nothing else seemed to matter. He tells her about the pilot program, and about how Shiro practically raised him for most of his teenage years.

Krolia listens to it all, and smiles, but her eyes stare into the distance, and he knows she still has one foot in the vision. (His dad's funeral, she admits, when Keith finally works up the courage to ask. She doesn't say more. Keith doesn't press.)

They lapse into silence after that, and Krolia tells Keith he should try to get some more sleep.

"What about you?"

She looks down at him as she stands, and maybe it's the firelight shining in her eyes, but she looks like she's barely holding back tears. She tells him she's going to check the perimeter, as long as she's up, but Keith doesn't need to know how to read faces to see through the excuse.

Here's another way she's like him: She doesn't like for other people to see her cry.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

When they reach the next planet, there's just as much fuss as last time, and of course Lance and Hunk are at the center of it, jumping on everyone as they emerge from the lions. Even Pidge isn't fast enough to avoid a bear hug from Hunk, though she squeals with laughter and empty threats as he picks her up. Coran's route brought them to a tropical world, and almost everyone has already traded their armor for something lighter--where they can find anything suitable in the emergency supplies Coran packed.

Keith watches it all from the Black Lion's cockpit, ostensibly running scans on the area to make sure no one followed them. (He doubts anyone bought his excuse; Krolia certainly didn't. But it at least saves him the initial burst of chaos.)

Unfortunately, Hunk isn't so easily deterred.

Keith makes it two steps past the edge of the ramp before Hunk is on him, smothering him in a hug so tight Keith feels like his ribs might actually crack. The air is forced out of his lungs, his feet lift two inches off the ground, and he's not honestly sure he has the range of motion to return the hug, even if he were in his right mind. As it is, he can barely think of anything but how close they are. How the air, when he breathes in, smells like Hunk--like engine oil and hot metal and spices Keith doesn't know by name. How he should be panicking at being trapped, helpless, vulnerable.

He's not panicking.

It's Hunk. He's keenly aware of his own strength and of his friends' distress. He'd never let anything happen to them, least of all by his own hands.

Keith doesn't remember the last time he felt this safe.

He also has no clue what to do. Should he try to reciprocate? Or will Hunk take that as Keith trying to wriggle free? Is this going to make the others think it's okay for them to ambush him with hugs, too?

(Would that really be such a bad thing?)

There's only one thing Keith is sure of: it's too much. It's not _bad_ , but it's too much. He's hyper-aware of every point where their bodies press together, of his arm pinned against Hunk's stomach, of the rigid shape of his breastplate digging into Hunk's shoulder. Hunk has one arm wrapped around Keith's right shoulder and curling back around his neck, his hand covering nearly all of the other shoulder. The other arm is the one pinning Keith's elbows to his sides, the hand flush against his ribs. Hunk's chin is in his hair, his pulse pounding in Keith's ear, slower and steadier than Keith's own.

He doesn't realize he's frozen until Hunk drops him and steps back, tucking his hands against his chest and looking like he just stepped on a cat's tail.

"Sorry," he says, smiling like there's no weight behind the words, or behind the hug, or behind the two years that separate them. (Two and a half, if you count Keith's time with the Blade.) "Got a little excited there. Didn't mean to smother you."

Keith wants to say it's fine, Hunk doesn't need to apologize, but his mouth hasn't yet remembered how to form words.

(The only thing worse than too much contact, he's realizing, is its abrupt withdrawal.)

He can't just ask Hunk to go back to hugging him, though, so he forces a poor excuse for a smile, ducks his head to hide the stricken expression he can't wipe off his face, and heads to where Coran, Romelle, and Krolia are setting up camp.

* * *

Hunk leaves a seat open beside him at the campfire that night, right on one end of the big log that Allura and Coran dragged over to the fire pit. Hunk's in the middle, Lance on his other side debating s'mores techniques with Pidge. Not that they have marshmallows to roast, or anything else required for s'mores, but that doesn't seem to be stopping them.

Keith isn't sure if it's deliberate, that empty seat, or if he's reading too much into it, but he slowly settles down on the edge, poised to run, and waits for a flicker of disappointment to cross Hunk's face.

Instead, Hunk beams and puts Keith to work slicing alien vegetables for the almost-a-stir-fry Hunk has planned for tonight.

Keith spends the next twenty minutes at war with himself. He's already missed his chance for a hug, but maybe he can create a different opportunity? Hunk and Lance are always falling all over each other (and all over Pidge, and sometimes the others, when the mood is right.) Keith can probably get away with the same thing, right?

The only problem is how. He's not good at casual touch. Hunk and Lance make it look easy, and Keith has no clue how. How do they not second guess every move? How do they know when it's appropriate to put an arm around someone's shoulder, or use them as a pillow, or sit on their lap, or any of it? Keith can't even make his hand move an inch in Hunk's direction without his pulse shooting through the roof.

After his third failed attempt he catches Hunk watching him, and his face burns. If this nameless alien planet could just open up and swallow him now, that would be amazing. Or maybe Red could choose this moment to decide she's had enough of the game of musical lions and has to kidnap Keith? He'll gladly launch himself out the nearest airlock if that's what she's waiting for.

But Hunk just smiles and turns back to his work, and when he's ready for the veggies Keith has long since diced and set aside, Hunk doesn't ask Keith to pass them over. Instead, he reaches around Keith himself. For a handful of seconds, Hunk leans against him: one hand on Keith's shoulder for balance, the other reaching past him as Hunk leans over. Hunk moves slowly the entire time, giving Keith plenty of time to see what's happening and to get away if he wants to, but relief has sapped the strength from Keith's legs. He's not sure he could stand right now if he wanted to.

He doesn't want to.

The moment passes quickly, and Hunk goes back to cooking, and Keith's heart slowly settles back into its rhythm. Hunk glances over after a moment and smiles, and Keith smiles back. Adrenaline floods his system, stronger than anything he's felt since losing the castle. He's charged into battle armed with nothing but a knife, faced five, ten, twenty armed enemies at a time. He's flown a hoverbike off a cliff with nothing but his own skill to keep him from smashing into bloody pieces at the bottom. He's faced his best friend in battle, knowing that a single moment of hesitation could get one or both of them killed.

And yet he's never felt as wired as he does right now. It's the touch, but it's more than just that. It's the way his stomach turns and his heart leaps at the same moment, revulsion mingling with an indefinable thrill.

It's the way Hunk leans over again a few moments later, elbowing Keith in the side and asking him if he can taste the stir fry for him, see if it needs any more salt. (It's perfect, of course. Hunk's palate is far more refined than Keith's, but the point of this isn't the taste of the food.)

The first few times, Hunk has to telegraph his intent, and Keith still braces himself for--for something. For the whatever-it-is that sometimes comes with touch and sometimes doesn't, unpredictable as a flash of lightning. He keeps telling himself that even if the touch lingers, even if it hurts, it's worth it for the way it makes his insides uncoil a little more with each repetition.

Soon enough, it becomes clear that Keith is worrying for nothing. Whether it's because he's in a good place today, or because Hunk has a magic touch, none of the casual bumps, shoves, or brushes trigger Keith's defenses. It's still a thrill each time Hunk leans over, but more the thrill of conspiracy than the threat of battle.

By midway through dinner, Keith has stopped thinking about the touches altogether. Pidge brings up some game they all played while Keith was away and Shiro was in the Black Lion.

"So D&D," Shiro says, once she's done setting out the rules.

Pidge grins. "Basically. The balance is a little different, but it honestly just feels like a homebrew that still has the D&D backbone. And since we don't have to all be in the same place to play it, I was thinking we could start a campaign on the next leg of our flight."

"It'll pass the time, for sure," Shiro says. "But DMing--or, what Lore Mastering? It takes a lot of work. Coran probably needs time to prepare."

Coran chuckles. "Not to worry. I've got an entire echo cube full of adventures I haven't had a chance to run yet. By the time you and Keith have rolled up your characters, I should be ready to go."

"Yeah," Hunk says, looping an arm around Keith's neck and pulling him in. "And Keith charging into every possible fight is _just_ what our party needs."

Keith laughs, reaching up to grab Hunk's wrist as he's nearly pulled right over on top of Hunk. "Hey! I've gotten better about that."

Pidge snorts. "Don't let him trick you, Keith. We would be fine if our _cleric_ ever used his _healing spells_."

"Says the dwarf whose backup plan when smacking things with an axe doesn't work is to smack harder."

Lance leans back as Hunk and Pidge continue to bicker, and he catches Keith's eye around Hunk's back. "Allura basically carries our party."

Keith just shakes his head, his smile growing as the sun sinks below the trees. He doesn't protest when Coran pulls out a tablet loaded with the rule book and starts to outline the options. The team settles in around the campfire to listen and debate the merits of each class, and before Keith knows it he's starting to drowse. The warm night air, his full stomach, and the voices of his friends cocoon him in a warmth that goes beyond the physical, and when Hunk tugs on his shoulder, Keith doesn't resist the pull. He turns, leaning back against Hunk's chest, and breathes out a heavy sigh as one arm wraps around him with a comforting weight.

He thinks he hears someone cooing, quickly cut off with a cry of pain, but he's already too far gone to care. Let the others say what they will. In this moment, Keith is willing to admit he needs this.


	8. Avoiding the Issue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time: In the Aybss, Keith and Krolia finally talked about how Keith's dad died. In the present, meanwhile, Hunk caught on to Keith's hunger for touch and uncertainty about how to initiate it and took it on himself to solve the problem, first by incidental touches, then later by coaxing Keith into falling asleep leaning back against him.

* * *

**One Year Ago**

* * *

Yorak continues to grow. By now she's noticeably beyond the size of a typical wolf--at least, beyond the size of any wolf Keith has ever seen. Keith's first thought, when he reaches for a comparison, is a lion, which almost makes him laugh, and almost makes him cry, because he hadn't really thought about how much he misses Red.

Black, too, he supposes, but their relationship was strained from the start, born of necessity and painful for both of them. It's nothing like the easy, warm closeness he shared with Red, and he doesn't think it's because Black isn't the type to form close bonds. The way Shiro talks about her, she's downright motherly sometimes. It's just with Keith that she holds herself at a distance.

Krolia has been hoping that Yorak will lose some of her boundless energy as she gets older, but it hasn't happened yet. She still frisks around Keith when he goes out for a jog or runs through sword forms in the early morning mist. She still tries to climb into his lap to steal his scraps at dinner.

And she's learned a new trick, too.

They've trained her to act as a guard dog, watching the camp when they're both out. She'll even stay put, on a good day, for a whole hour. (It's a work in progress.)

And every time Keith comes home, he finds Yorak sitting at attention at the mouth of the cave, ears pricked, eyes locked on whatever sound or shadow or scent gave away his location. She stands, tail thumping once, then gathers herself for a leap, teleporting halfway through the motion so that she reaches him hardly three steps inside their clearing.

It still catches him off guard, even after a dozen repetitions, and he invariably ends up on the ground with a hundred-and-some pounds of silky fur and coiled muscle flopped over him.

Keith finds himself making up excuses to leave camp just to get Yorak to jump on him when he returns. It's training. That's what he tells Krolia.

In reality, he just likes having Yorak's full weight to keep him tethered. It's a little bit like a hug, without the threat of social expectations. It's a little bit like a favorite stuffed animal, but even better and not nearly so embarrassing. But mostly? It's a little bit like magic in how quickly and consistently it eases the constant tension in his chest.

Today, Yorak isn't content to simply lay on him. She jumps, teleports, and tackles him as usual, but then she starts licking his face, pausing every so often to sniff him like she's trying to figure out what happened to him while he was gone.

"I missed you too, Yorak," Keith says with a laugh, putting up only a cursory fight to keep her head away from his face. She compromises by licking his gloves, even though it makes her shake her head and stare at the offending texture like it's a threat she hasn't figured out how to vanquish.

Krolia's working on another spear, their stock having been depleted in the last hunt. The steady rhythm of the stone knife on wood slows for a moment, then picks up again, more determined than before.

"You're never going to let me live that down, are you?"

Keith frowns, coaxing Yorak off him so he can sit up and stare at his mother. "Live what down?"

She looks at him like she can't figure out if he's playing with her or not. "The name," she says. "Your father already informed me that it wasn't appropriate for a human child living on Earth, so I can appreciate the joke here. But don't you think it's getting a little old?"

Keith's heart sinks, and he curls his fingers into Yorak's fur as his throat closes against his next words. It's been months they've had Yorak now. And, okay, so maybe it was a little ironic to name his wolf after himself, kinda, but he thought it was a joke they shared. He thought it was fun, not cruel. If he'd realized that Krolia thought he was making fun of her, he would have picked a different name.

He wants to ask her why she never said anything before now. Why she let him go on making an idiot of himself thinking the whole name thing was family bonding or whatever. He curls forward, hiding his face in Yorak's fur as his emotions try to boil over. It's not like this is a big deal or anything. There's no reason for him to be so stupidly, irrationally upset that his mother thought he was making fun of her, but he can't _help_ it. He can't help that he doesn't get people, or that he keeps trying anyway, even though all it ever gets him is a dead end where he's built a bonding moment out of nothing and the other person just gets annoyed.

He can't help that nothing out here in the Abyss can ever really soothe the constant low-level panic that's just boiled over, a stupid little misunderstanding the trigger for a full blown attack that's grossly out of proportion to the reality of the situation.

"It wasn't a joke," he says, compacting all the (pointless, naive, _idiotic_ ) hurt into anger. Anger is easier to deal with. Anger can be directed, unlike hurt, which just festers inside until he can't see anything but the pain. But anger is restless, too, and even as he wrestles with vocal cords that don't want to work and a mind that keeps playing a montage of all his social missteps, he shoves Yorak off him and scrambles to his feet.

"Keith?" Krolia asks, an edge of concern to her voice.

Keith ignores her, grabbing three spears from the opposite end of the cave and storming out across the field.

"Where are you going? Keith!"

"I'm going hunting," Keith snaps, neither slowing nor turning. "Don't wait up."

Yorak lingers behind for a long few seconds, though he hears her claws clack against the stone as she shuffles her feet. The air crackles with impending teleportation, but she holds herself back. They've been training her, after all, and more often than not, when Keith leaves, it means she's on guard duty until he returns. But he hasn't given her the signal that tells her to stay, and he hasn't whistled to tell her to come, so she waits, uncertain. Afraid to make the wrong move.

Afraid to misread the situation and make a fool of herself when she only has the best of intentions.

Keith has to try twice before he manages a whistle, and Yorak appears at his side instantaneously, her tail held high and her paws already carrying her ahead. Krolia remains behind when they leave, and Keith doesn't look back until he's much to far to see the camp through the foliage.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

Pidge helps Keith with his character the next day, mostly because Hunk wants to make real food for at least the first few days of their next leg. It looks like granola to Keith--mostly grains and nuts and a little bit of dried fruit. It's one of the few things that will keep, and it has infinitely more texture than the food goo/ration bar combo they've been living off of so far. Which is good, because Coran's already warned them that it's at least three weeks to the next planet--and even that one is most likely inhospitable. It's got everyone antsy, even knowing they're staying here til tomorrow.

Lance volunteered to help Keith with character creation, but as it turns out, he never actually read the rules. He just wanted to see how much "stabbing power" they could give Keith's character before Coran put the brakes on.

"Does my character _need_ to have a sword?" Keith asks.

Across the camp, Lance looks up from the laundry he's helping Coran with to give Keith a look. "Blasphemy," he says. "You're _Keith._ You live and breathe swords."

"Not... really?"

Pidge rolls her eyes. "Your character can be whatever you want, Keith. It's a game. It's meant to be fun. Shiro's playing a warlock, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually have magic."

Lance looks up in surprise, his eyes darting toward Shiro, who's doing his best to help Allura take inventory of their supplies with only one arm. He's clumsy with his left hand and keeps getting flustered, blushing and hunching over each time he drops something or struggles to make a legible mark for Allura's counts. Keith would offer moral support except that Shiro does exponentially worse the more people he has watching, and it all only makes him more frustrated.

Lance leans forward, dropping his voice. "You sure he doesn't want to be a paladin again?"

Keith frowns as Pidge drops her eyes, twirling a blade of reddish grass around her finger. "No. He was pretty adamant about it. 'I'm already a paladin in real life. Why would I want to be one in the game?'"

Lance and Pidge both look green all of a sudden, and then Hunk is there, sitting close enough for Keith to feel his body heat, a pan of half-baked granola unattended by the fire. "Seriously? He wasn't, like, pulling your leg or something, was he?"

"Shiro?" Pidge asks, skeptical. "No. He seemed genuinely confused, like it was weird for me to ask something like that."

"Because it _is_ weird?" Keith suggests. "What do you care what class Shiro wants to play?"

"I don't!" Lance says. "He can do what he wants. He's a big boy."

Keith frowns.

Pidge stays stubbornly silent, avoiding Keith's gaze the way Yorak does when Keith catches her stealing food out of their stores.

Hunk caves first, pushing his fingertips together. "Well, I mean... We kinda played Monsters & Mana before? With Shiro--well, not-Shiro. Shiro's clone? Anyway, he had his heart set on playing a paladin. Kinda got upset anytime someone suggested he try a different class for once."

Keith's chest goes tight for too many reasons to name. Because of the reminder of what happened, for starters. That's obviously what has the others acting so weird, though he can't say if they're uncomfortable thinking about the clone or just worried about upsetting Keith. (He's the one who fought Shiro's clone, after all. The one who has a scar from his blade that pulls at his cheek every time he smiles. He's wondered more than once whether the silence on the subject is because they're tiptoeing around _him_.)

But Keith doesn't think that's why he's finding it so hard to breathe all of a sudden. It's been weeks since the fight; he's come to grips with the fact that Shiro was cloned, that Keith was taken in by Haggar's plot as surely as anyone else. That he never even noticed his best friend was dead. All that _hurts_ , but not as much as it did at first, and it's certainly not what's making him panicky now. It's the way the others refuse to look at him, but keep sneaking glances at Shiro. The way this is the first time in a month anyone has dared bring the clone up in conversation. It's like they all just want to forget he ever existed.

He's seen this before, when a Blade dies. The other Blades have seen too much death already, and they don't have the luxury of mourning everyone they lose. So after a single moment of silence the dead are quietly tucked away where their ghost can't interfere with the next mission. It's never sat well with Keith. The silence. The taboo that surrounds those who have passed. Maybe it's because he's always been the one who's quietly brushed out of the way and forgotten once he's no longer a novelty. His foster families did it, his teachers at public school did it. Even the Garrison did it, once Keith became too much a troublemaker to go on being their next Shiro.

Keith knows all too well what it's like to be forgotten. No one deserves that, not even after they die. And ignoring Shiro's clone because it's _easier_ is bald-faced hypocrisy--but Keith doesn't know what to do with all the directionless anger churning inside of him. He's not going to take it out on the team. He's not going to say anything that might make Shiro feel like he did something wrong by surviving just because the clone's body is the only option he had.

"Shiro's allowed to have his own opinion," Keith says, staring at his character sheet still, but no longer excited by the options before him. The others stare at him; he can feel their eyes on his head. "They're two different people. You can't keep expecting them to be interchangeable."

It occurs to Keith that there's several ways to interpret his words, and that at least one of them dismisses the clone in another way. _He wasn't Shiro; he was just a clone; of course he turned on us. That's what he was built for._ It's not what Keith meant, but it may be what the others heard. They don't say anything, though, and Keith doesn't want to pick a fight. Not now. Not where Shiro might overhear. So he drops it.

He works a little while longer on his character for the game, but his heart's not in it anymore. He briefly toys with the idea of playing a paladin himself, in honor of the friend they lost, but he doubts that would go over well. The point of this game is to make the trip easier, not more miserable, and shoving the dead clone into the spotlight seems like a recipe for disaster.

(Still, staying quiet as the others move the conversation along, sweeping the clone once more under the rug, feels a little bit like a betrayal.)

He wishes he at least had a name for the clone. He deserves that much, at least.

Keith excuses himself before long, saying that he needs to take Yorak on a walk. Maybe it's not the sort of thing you really need to do with a cosmic wolf, but no one challenges him, and he needs the space.

Unfortunately, Pidge invites herself along, ostensibly because she wants to do some scans of the local flora. It sounds like just about as solid an excuse to get away as Keith's, which means he really has no room to criticize her for it. He still spends the first ten minutes of the walk preparing himself for an interrogation or something. He's not sure what Pidge is really doing, but it's probably not going to be pleasant.

"We know," Pidge says at last. "That our Shiro and the other Shiro aren't the same person. We get it."

"Do you?" Keith asks. "Cause it kinda seems like you'd all just rather not think about it at all."

Pidge cringes. "Well, it's not exactly a cheerful thought," she says dryly.

Keith sighs. "No. It's not. But he was our friend."

She's silent for a long moment, her steps crunching on the dead leaves underfoot. "I'm kinda surprised to hear you say that, if I'm being honest."

Keith stops walking, darting a glance at Pidge before turning to watch Yorak, who's found some trail to follow through the underbrush. "Why?"

"Because you only knew him for a couple of weeks, and you spent most of that time fighting or running away."

"Have you met me, Pidge?" he says, falling into the dry, cutting tone he's used with so many case workers who 'just wanted to help.' "Fighting and running away from relationships is basically who I am."

"Not with Shiro," Pidge says. "You hardly ever fight with Shiro--actual Shiro, I mean. And you never run away from him. If there's one person in the universe you trust not to hurt you, it's Shiro."

Keith is quiet for a long time, his shoulders pulling forward as he tries to fight off Pidge's words. "I trust all of you not to hurt me," he says at length, soft enough that the words are nearly swallowed by the rustling of leaves. "That doesn't mean I trust myself not to fuck things up."

Pidge is staring at him again; he can feel it. His skin crawls with the weight of her gaze, and he whistles to get Yorak moving again before he combusts. These are things he's left unsaid too long, and the time that wore down his filter hasn't thickened his skin against a million imagined responses.

So he moves the conversation along, not giving Pidge a chance to tease him. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. You weren't there--when I fought him. He cared about this team, Pidge. He cared about us, and it killed him to fight me. I don't--I don't know if I have any right to call him a friend when I never even knew him. I don't know if _he_ even knew who he was. But he was still our friend, and he died. Shouldn't we at least recognize that?"

There's a long pause before Pidge answers, and Keith wonders if maybe she has thought about what happened, after all. Maybe she's like him and she hasn't _stopped_ thinking about it. Maybe it just hurts too much to talk about it.

"Maybe you're right," Pidge says. "He deserves a... a funeral, or something, at least. But I don't wanna be the one who brings it up with Shiro. The guy already died once, and watched himself die again, sort of. I don't know how he's gonna feel about this."

It's exactly that that's been holding Keith back this long, so he can't really blame her. But dancing around the issue like this is tearing him apart. He can't just keep pretending everything's fine.

"I'll talk to him," Keith says. "Maybe not today, but when he's a little more..."

"Present?" Pidge suggests.

She's not wrong. Shiro is doing better these days, he _is_ , but he still sleeps a lot and gets distracted at odd moments, staring off into space like he's looking at something the rest of them can't see. There have been whole days that Keith doesn't hear him say a single word.

But it can't last forever. Even just last night he was acting more like his old self than Keith has seen him since Allura brought him back. Sooner or later, Keith won't need to worry so much about how Shiro will react. He'll bring it up then, and maybe then they can all get some closure.

For now, he tries not to dwell on it too much. They've all been too stressed lately, and they'll all be stressed again before this trip is over. Better, for now, to focus on what he can fix.


	9. In the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time: The team has convinced Keith and Shiro to join the Monsters and Mana game, but while debating character options, Keith ran up against old wounds that have to do with Shiro's clone. Meanwhile in the past, Keith realized that his mother thought he named his wolf Yorak as a joke and, hurt and embarrassed, he stormed off into the jungle to cool down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick refresher on the on M&M characters:  
> Lance plays Pike  
> Hunk plays Block  
> Pidge plays Meklavar  
> Allura plays an archer who I've seen alternately called "The archer Valayun" and "The archer OF Valayun" (with no canonical name.) For the sake of distinguishing IC/OOC actions and speech (and just because I like the name), I'm calling her Valayun  
> If anyone gets the reference behind Shiro's character's name, you win all the cookies.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

The next leg of the journey is better, at first. Keith settles on a character for the game, a half-Archaean Klythian. Keith doesn't know what a Klythian is, exactly, and Pidge comparing the class to monks doesn't really help, considering the rules barely mentioned religious practices, but he understands the mechanics of it well enough. For all Lance keeps pushing him toward one of the sword wielders, the Klythian strikes Keith as a much stronger fighting style. They aren't tanks in the sense of dealing and absorbing massive amounts of damage, but they're quick, versatile strikers who can disable enemies quickly, and that sounds way more interesting to play than having a fake sword that just chips away at large pools of health.

His favorite part by far, though, is his introduction to the rest of the party.

They've been traversing the ruins of an ancient city, fighting off hordes of giant spiders and old, often malfunctioning traps. Shiro's character, the timid, occasionally snarky warlock Sagi, has been sent to the ruins by his patron, the Spirit of the Void, and hired the rest of the team to accompany him on his quest to break the seal that has been placed on the spirit's altar in the old temple.

Akoria, of course, isn't about to stand aside and let the intruders do as they please.

"Keith, what the hell!" Lance cries, his mouth hanging open as he finds Pike immobilized, courtesy of Akoria's surprise attack.

Keith only grins, sitting back and watching the chaos unfold. Pidge positions Meklavar in front of the helpless Pike, axe out and only holding back from decapitating the stranger cloaked in shadows because Pidge knows that they're Keith's character. Allura and Hunk are similarly cautious, and Shiro is too busy wheezing through a laugh to have much input at all.

Coran, of course, says nothing at all. He knows what Keith's up to. In fact, he approved the plan. Keith just hopes he doesn't get his character killed before the story even has a chance to get going.

"Stay back!" Meklovar cries, assuming a defensive stance. "I've got an axe and I'm not afraid to use it!"

"We've also got a warlock who panic-casts nightmare fuel," Block adds, entirely too cheerful. (Keith has seen the spells Shiro picked, and nightmare fuel might be too tame a phrase to describe them.)

"Turn back." Keith isn't much of an actor; not like Lance or Coran. Not even like most of the rest of the group, who can at least maintain a character voice to make it clear when they're talking and when their characters are. He's more on par with Romelle and Krolia, who opted to sit out of the game, pleading lack of confidence. Part of Keith wishes he'd taken the same out, but his friends were so excited to play with him, and he with them, that he agreed before he could think about what it entailed.

He's glad he's here, but he's still painfully aware of how little he sounds like Akoria should, either in voice or in tone. He clears his throat, glancing to where Krolia sits behind him in the cockpit, watching the game with half an eye.

Fortunately, Allura is quick to pick up his slack. "Who are you?" Valayun demands, an arrow knocked and pointed at Akoria's feet. "And why do you stand against us?"

Akoria throws back her hood, revealing piercing golden eyes and thick black hair pinned up and out of her way. "I am Princess Akoria of Shahan, and you are meddling in things you do not understand."

"Wait, wait, wait." Lance holds up his hands, shaking his head furiously. "Sorry, _Princess_ Akoria?"

Keith's hackles rise, and he can't quite stop himself from scowling. "Yeah. What, you got a problem with me playing a female character?"

"Pssh. No. You do you, man. I just-- Are you literally playing Allura?"

Keith's anger drains away, and he flushes. "I--what? No." He shoots a look at Allura and is relieve to see that she doesn't look offended. If anything, she seems downright giddy at the prospect, her hands clasped over her mouth but a smile lighting up her eyes. "Maybe," he admits, reluctantly. "Just the initial concept, though. A princess who can kick ass? Who wouldn't want to be that?"

The others all concede the point, and Keith's pulse slowly returns to normal as they continue on, Sagi laying out his quest and Akoria countering with tales of the great evil trapped behind the seal--the same evil that laid waste to her kingdom ten years prior. The party accepts Akoria's aid, both sides agreeing not to touch the seal until they learn the truth behind the disaster and how Sagi's patron might be connected.

By the time they've gone back to fighting monsters and disarming traps, everyone seems to have forgotten about Keith basing his character on Allura, except that Valayun--for no apparent reason--has gone out of her way to make friends with her new traveling companion.

That's fine. As long as Allura finds it flattering instead of insulting, he'll run with the comparison and let the others assume it's as straightforward as that.

They don't need to know that, however much the initial concept was inspired by Allura, in Keith's mind Akoria has far more in common with Krolia.

* * *

**One Year Ago**

* * *

It's getting dark.

Keith knows the alien jungle is dangerous at night, and that he should turn around before he gets himself lost. Krolia is probably worried about him by now, but even if she decides to come after him, the odds of her finding him out here at night are slim. Especially considering he hasn't stopped walking since he left camp. He's lost his spears by now, one after another swallowed by the darkness or carried off by the animal he was trying to bring down.

He should go back.

He should, but he can't. His insides are still knotted up with humiliation and bitterness and the lingering pull of a panic that has almost run its course. He feels like an idiot for letting himself get so worked up over something as petty as his mother not liking the name he chose for his pet wolf--it's _stupid_ , and she must think he's incredibly childish for throwing a tantrum over it like this.

Why can't he just talk to her? She's family, same as his dad was. Same as Shiro is. Keith has never had trouble talking to either of them--at least not since the very early days where he was still trying to figure out what to make of Shiro. It should be the same with Krolia. Shouldn't it? He should be able to just tell her that he named the wolf Yorak because he _likes_ the name. He likes that Krolia chose it.

Just when his steps start to slow, guilt dragging him backward with enough force that he almost gives in and turns around, the bitterness makes a resurgence. Communication runs both ways, after all, and Krolia is the parent in this relationship. If anyone should feel bad here, it's her. She's the one who let things fester for an entire year before saying something about the name. That's not on Keith.

He starts walking again, anger fueling his steps, and he hacks at the plants in his way, carving a path through the jungle just to put more distance behind him.

Yorak keeps pace beside him, occasionally teleporting out of the way of a branch he's just hacked off at the base. She's nervous now, her ears drooping, her tail low. She whines at him, dropping back as though telling him to turn around, but he keeps going. He's let the frustration build up too long, and now he's screwed himself. Too angry to stop moving, too embarrassed to turn around. So he keeps going, forging ahead as the shadows lengthen around him.

Yorak stops, whining at him again, and Keith rounds on her. "I'm not going back," he snaps, wishing she understood him better so he could tell her to shut up or to leave him alone.

She's not whining at him.

She's facing out into the darkness, crouched low to the ground, and the whine drops to the back of her throat and becomes a growl, soft at first but growing in volume as Keith activates his Blade and drops into stance, scouring the shadows for whatever it is she's seen.

He's an idiot.

Why is he even out here, alone, armed only with his Blade, in an alien jungle he _knows_ is full of predators--predators that can see in the dark far better than he can?

By the time he spots the eyes, faint flashes of yellow-green in the bushes, it's too late. The predator charges. _Predators._ Two go for Yorak, pouncing for her and crashing into each other as she teleports away. The light blinds Keith, and his Blade meets empty air as he swings for the shadow that was charging him. It hits him low, bowling him over, and Keith tries to roll with the hit, only to slam his shoulder into a tree.

Claws dig into his armor--not breaking through, barely even scratching the surface, but catching in the seams and yanking him. His head spins as Yorak teleports again. Hot, wet breath brushes against his face and he lashes out, swinging for the face he imagines looming over him, wicked sharp teeth dripping saliva and ready to tear out his throat.

Something yelps in pain, but Keith doesn't allow himself time to celebrate. He rolls, letting his Blade revert to dagger form so he doesn't accidentally disembowel himself, and stands. The moon still shines through the canopy, and the last traces of twilight linger in the air, but the shadows are too dark, his eyes aren't built for the night, and the unpredictable blue flashes of Yorak's jumps only serve to disorient him further. He stumbles, swinging blindly at the snapping of twigs and huffing of a predator's breath.

What is it that's hunting him? He can't tell in the darkness. They cast large shadows, but his sword only ever finds flesh when he swings low, and he can't tell if his eyes are betraying him or only his aim. He fumbles for a light, but the only one the Marmora suit has built in is a tightly-focused penlight that catches flashes of dark blue-black fur and too-many glittering eyes.

Yorak yowls, snarls, teleports, and then something gives a wet crunch that makes Keith's stomach turn. "Yorak?" he calls.

One of the creatures barrels into him, knocking him over, and before he can get his sword up, something pierces his shoulder, stabbing straight through the armor and pinning him to the ground. He screams, his arm going numb. He thinks he's still holding his sword, but he can't be sure, and he certainly can't get it up high enough to be of any use.

Something is moving--the creature pinning him, or one of its companions--and Keith's mind is quietly sliding into the realm of raw survival instinct. He thrashes, kicking upward to try to get the creature off him, but when he lands a blow, it doesn't have the effect he's hoping for. The creature screams, rearing back, but the claw, or spine, or stinger, or whatever it is that's lodged in his shoulder--it doesn't let go.

He's airborne for only a moment, tumbling end over end through a void. Then there's a tug in his shoulder, and the spine tears free. Fresh agony races down his arms to the tips of his fingers, and Keith knows he's still clutching his Blade by some miracle because he grips it so tight he feels his fingers bruising. He doesn't have time to scream before he hits something solid. There's a flash of pain in his back, a tightness in his chest as the air rushes out of him, and he's tumbling again, too far.

He hits feet-first this time, and something gives. A break or a sprain, he doesn't know. Doesn't want to know. The creatures are still moving, crashing through the underbrush, but they're farther away now, or maybe that's the ringing in his ears. He tries to push himself up and nausea hits him so hard he's on the ground again before he realizes his arms have given out. The wound in his shoulder is throbbing, waves of fire radiating down his arm and out across his chest.

It occurs to him that, if it was a stinger that got him, there's a very good chance those creatures are venomous, and that he might be in more trouble than he realized. Every inch of him hurts, and no matter how much he tells himself he needs to get away, he can't make himself move. Even his thoughts are growing dim.

The flashes of light don't seem so bright now; the hisses and yowls of the fight taper off into silence. Yorak is gone. He knows that, though he can't grasp what it means. Is she hurt? Dead? Did she lead the predators away, or did they chase her off?

Are they coming to finish him?

He holds his breath, listening for any sign that the predators are drawing nearer.

He hears nothing.

But maybe that's just him. Drifting.

It hurts.

It hurts, and it's dark, and it's silent. Keith loses track of himself for a moment, or for longer than that, and by the time he's aware of the rustling in the underbrush, they've snuck up on him.

He whimpers, trying to raise his sword.

His sword...

He could have sworn he had it just a moment ago, but it's gone now. He can't feel it in his hand.

He can't feel his _hand_.

He has to run, but he can't make himself move.

They're going to kill him.

He should have gone home.

Something touches him, and he tenses for more pain. But this is a gentle touch, testing his wound and then skirting around it as Keith flinches away. He hears his name, a breath on the wind, but he's fading again--not into the pain this time, but into the shadows.

The world around him spins, and for a moment he's cold. Only a moment, though, and then there's something warm there. Warm arms beneath him. A warm body against his side. A warm shoulder to rest his head on. He breathes deeply, sinking into the warmth, and he feels a voice rumble through his bones.

"Good girl, Yorak."

It's not his name, not in this life, but it's spoken with such fondness that it makes his heart ache anyway.


	10. Stolen Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time: Keith and the team play M&M to pass the time, and Keith tries not to let on that he based his character off not only Allura, but Krolia as well. Meanwhile in the past, Keith was attacked by a creature. Thankfully Krolia found him before it was too late.

* * *

**One Year Ago**

* * *

Keith's world is a sequence of shifting shadows.

There's no time where he is, just a constant burning sensation that sometimes slips sideways out of his mind but never totally goes away. Consciousness comes and goes, the way it would sometimes in the desert as first the lingering heat of day and then the bitter cold of night stole into the shack to disrupt Keith's rest.

It's hard to remember where he is, and whether the warmth at his side is a wound, or an ally, or a trick of his mind. Sometimes, when he wakes, he wonders when he got a dog, or which of the other paladins dragged him into a group cuddle pile this time.

Sometimes he dreams his mother is there, carding her fingers through his hair and humming a song he almost remembers. (This is the worst, he thinks, because it's invariably followed by memories of his father, watching the horizon as though hoping his wife will come back to them, some day. Keith wasn't supposed to see how lonely his dad was, but he saw, and it never left him--that first realization of what it meant to be the one left behind.)

He wakes again, lucid for the first time in what feels like a month. The clarity lasts just long enough for him to open his eyes and see Krolia looking down at him, old tear tracks painting a dirt-streaked face. She stops breathing when their eyes lock, and lifts her hand to brush his cheek. Keith leans into the touch, and maybe he's not as lucid as he thinks, because he could swear Krolia is cradling him in her lap, shielding him from the world, his head resting on her shoulder.

The next time he wakes, a sun is just rising, and he's laid out on a pallet of leaves, a thick fur blanket draped over him. Krolia keeps watch from a respectful distance, her eyes on the coals of last night's fire.

Keith tries to sit up, but fire flares in his shoulder, and he curses as he falls back onto the nest of leaves.

"Careful." Krolia is there in an instant, kneeling beside him and grabbing his shoulder--not the one that feels like it's trying to combust. "You're hurt."

"Couldn't tell," Keith grunts. His mouth feels like sandpaper, and his voice comes out scratchy and hoarse. "What happened?"

"You were attacked. The creatures responsible are likely nocturnal; I haven't seen them on any of my hunts."

Right. Keith remembers now, more or less. He was letting his anger get the best of him, as usual, storming off into the jungle at night alone out of spite. "How'd you find me?"

"Yorak knew you needed help," Krolia explains. "She came to find me and led me back to you."

Her words drag just a hair, and that gets Keith thinking. As far from camp as he was, it should have taken hours for Krolia to reach him, even assuming Yorak teleported all the way back to camp at the first sign of danger. Keith was out of it at the time, but he doesn't think it was hours. Was Krolia following him?

He wants to be angry about that, but he probably would be dead otherwise, so he pretends he doesn't know what she isn't saying. (He pretends, too, that he doesn't remember Krolia holding him. Or didn't dream it, or whatever. She doesn't do things like that, and he's afraid to embarrass himself if it turns out he really did just want a hug so bad his mind conjured one for him.)

"How long...?"

"Not quite two quintants, I believe. Give or take. I was more preoccupied with your prognosis than checking the time for the first few vargas."

There's the barest tremor in her voice as she says this, and for a moment Keith has a wild urge to hug her. That must be the fever talking. (He's not sure he _has_ a fever, but he does feel clammy, and blaming a fever makes him feel less weird about the stray thought.) It's a moot point, in the end; even if he could work up the courage to hug her, he's still not sure he has the strength to sit up. Just talking leaves him a little breathless, and his shoulder flares with pain again when he tries to wipe the sweat from his brow.

"You should try not to strain that arm," Krolia says, frowning. "At least for a few movements."

"Movements?" Keith asks, his heart sinking. "You mean like _weeks_?" He tells himself it will be fine. He's not truly ambidextrous, but he's trained to fight with a sword in either hand, so he knows he can get by, but it's his right arm that's wounded, and that's still his dominant hand, despite all his training, and his efforts to calm himself aren't quite enough to stave off the mounting panic.

"We have very little in the way of medical supplies," Krolia says. "Bandages and a small supply of antiseptic. No cryopods, no local healing units, not even anything for sutures. The last thing you want is to exacerbate the damage that's already been done."

Keith lifts his head off the leaves, squinting at his arm. His armor is gone, the flexible undersuit pulled down to his waist to give access to his shoulder wound, which burns red around the bandage tied in place. Crimson streaks snake down his arm and toward his chest, and he doesn't have to be a doctor to know that probably isn't good.

"The wound itself doesn't look bad," Krolia says, seeing his alarm. "At least, it seems to have missed anything vital. You'll probably need to rebuild strength and flexibility in that arm after you're healed, but there's shouldn't be any permanent effects, so long as we keep it clean and you don't push yourself."

Keith stares at her, trying to gauge how much she's downplaying the danger for his benefit. "Is it infected?"

Krolia hesitates. "I don't think so. ...The creature that attacked you may have been venomous."

Keith feels cold in a way he doesn't think has to do with being half dressed. "So... what do we do? It's not like we're going to find antivenom out here."

"You aren't dead yet."

It's a blunt way of putting it, but she's not wrong. Two days Keith has been out. He remembers almost none of it, but Krolia's visible exhaustion and the cracks in her normally unshakable composure suggest that he was in bad shape. Suddenly a little bit of weakness and fatigue doesn't sound so bad. He's probably through the worst of it, right?

He still doesn't know what comes next--what effects of the venom might hang around, whether he might relapse, how long his recovery might take. It scares him, not knowing, but fear takes energy, and his is rapidly fading.

Krolia's eyes dart to his face, and her expression softens. "You should drink some water," she says, "and then rest. The most important thing now is to keep up your strength."

He doesn't argue with her--especially not after sitting up enough to drink from the canteen saps what little strength he has left. Her arm around him feels comfortable, familiar, and he wonders again if anything he thinks he remembers is real.

He fades before he can worry about it too much, drifting off with Yorak's head on his thigh.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

The journey lasts longer than they expect it to.

First it's an Imperial outpost on KJ227, the planet they'd originally intended to be their stop--easy enough to avoid, after the patrol that alerted them to the Imperial presence in the area in the first place. Keith hopes no one notices those ships have gone missing, at least for a while. The base here is small, so the paladins could handle a battle if it came to that, but no one wants to risk reinforcements.

More importantly, no one wants to tip their hand just yet. They haven't been in touch with their allies since the fight with Lotor, now nearly two months ago; there's a good chance the universe thinks they're all dead. Keith figures that as long as they're making their friends worry for them, _mourn_ them, they can at least capitalize on the tactical advantages they've been dealth.

(It sucks, he knows, most of all for Matt--and for Pidge, who's been scanning the comms  frequencies almost nonstop for the last week, to no avail. Keith is mostly sure she had a breakdown last night, but she only has the mice and the trash puffs in the Green Lion with her, and Keith can't read them any better than he can read people.)

After KJ227, it's another week of flying, passing only barren asteroids and the fringes of solar systems that turn up no hospitable bodies on the scans. Keith knows more than one of his friends is nearing their limits, never mind that even if they stop they'd have to stay in armor, helmets sealed, at all times. Keith is almost to that point, himself. He can only run so many laps through Black's cargo and maintenance spaces before the cabin fever gets the better of him.

But ultimately, going out of their way to find somewhere to stretch their legs for a few hours would only extend their torture with minimal benefit. So they press on, throwing themselves into the Monsters and Mana campaign for large portions of each day just to get their minds away from the cramped quarters and empty space outside.

And Keith has to hand it to Coran: the man knows how to spin a tale, even despite this team's antics trying to derail the campaign at every turn. The party explores the ruins of Shahan, discovering the archfiend masquerading as Sagi's patron, the Spirit of the Void. The fiend's rampage destroyed Akoria's people, but it was the Spirit who took the fall for the act.

But Coran's story doesn't end there. They free Sagi's patron, complete a ritual that forced the archfiend back to his home realm, and only then discover that the fiend may have been behind the curse afflicting Block's hometown. There's a distant library that might have more information--though progress is slow on that front, thanks to a festival in a nearby city and rumors of a vast treasure that have Pike's fingers twitching from the word _go_. (To say nothing of the time Meklavar started a city-wide brawl over an off-hand insult at a tavern, or the time Sagi got himself kidnapped by a band of rogue wererats who hoped his magic might help them take over a fortified town in the foothills of the Stonespire Mountains.)

Honestly, Keith considers it a mark of just how long they've been flying that they're actually back on the main quest line by the time Coran finally identifies a habitable planet on the scans--occupied, but not by anyone with the tech to identify the lions as they come in.

Not even Shiro argues caution when Keith puts it to a vote, and within the hour they've set down around the edges of a mountain valley far enough removed from the pockets of civilization down below that no one will find them before they move on. Hopefully.

This time, it's not just Hunk and Lance who throw themselves into reunion hugs. Coran is falling all over everyone, Allura drags Romelle into the knot, and Pidge comes flying down Green's ramp, latching onto Hunk like a koala.

It's at that moment that Keith decides to send someone with Pidge on the next leg, whether or not she claims she's fine on her own. Coran, maybe, since he's the only one besides Hunk who can keep up with her mind. Shiro wouldn't be a bad choice, either, if he's up to it. And he certainly looks up to it. There's more color in his face since the last time Keith saw him in person--enough color that his silvered hair doesn't make him look quite so much like a ghost. He's steady on his feet, too, smiling as he returns Lance's hug in force.

Keith approaches the group cautiously, still a little unsure how one goes about intruding on a group hug. It probably counts as progress that he's not still hiding in Black, though, doesn't it?

Hunk and Shiro notice him at the same time, but they're both considerably impeded by clingy friends (Pidge and Lance, respectively) so it's Coran who takes Keith by the wrist and yanks him unceremoniously into the celebration. Keith stiffens for a moment, automatically, but then Shiro's hand is on his shoulder, and Hunk's arm loops around his back, and the tension coiling like a spring in Keith's chest unwinds.

(He catches himself thinking that a month is far too long to be away from his friends, and he almost starts laughing at the irony.)

Krolia is left alone, standing outside the group. Too far for grasping hands to catch her, too close to pretend she isn't watching. Keith feels her gaze on the side of his head and turns. Her face is unreadable, but something about the pinched expression sends a sympathetic pang through his chest.

She's gone on a patrol of the area by the time the group hug disperses, everyone spreading out to stretch their legs, relish the fresh air, or simply relax by the fire. Keith almost goes after her--there's not much cover in the area, so he can see her up on the ridge, surveying the rest of the mountain range.

It's too visible. If she's deliberately avoiding him, she'll see him coming at once and have plenty of time to avoid him, and even if she doesn't, the entire team will be watching. Keith doesn't need that much attention, and he doubts Krolia would appreciate it, either. He goes instead to sit with Shiro, who's adapting well to life without the prosthetic. He's helping Hunk with dinner--which mostly means Hunk is cooking, while Shiro grabs packages of freeze-dried food at his direction.

"We don't have a lot of parts right now," Hunk says, "but I've been drawing up some plans using the data Pidge compiled on your old arm. Uh--no mind-control this time, obviously."

Keith's steps falter at the reminder, but Shiro just smiles, tears open a packet of vegetables, and holds it between his knees as he reaches for water to rehydrate the shriveled chunks. "Don't worry about me, Hunk. We all have to make sacrifices until we get in touch with one of our allies."

"An arm is a pretty big sacrifice to make."

It must bother Shiro, surely--the way Hunk tiptoes around the issue of the clone, if nothing else--but if so, it doesn't show on his face. Nothing much shows on his face. Now that he's not tired all the time, Shiro's back to his usual pleasant mask, and it grates at Keith's nerves as he sits a little lower on the rock formation Hunk has chosen to frame his fire pit.

"Hey! Boss man!" Hunk says, beaming. "So what's the word? How long are we staying here?"

Keith wrinkles his nose. He's still not quite comfortable with the way everyone looks to him for decisions, especially with Shiro _right there,_ but Keith agreed to this job--twice, now, in fact. As long as he's the acting black paladin, he's just going to have to suck it up and accept his fate.

"A few days, at least," he says. "I still have to talk to Coran and see how far we're looking at to the next stop, but I don't want to rush us out of here. If we need to stay a week, we'll stay a week. If we're ready to leave sooner and this leg is going to be short, maybe we'll leave sooner."

Hunk salutes him with his wooden spoon, and Shiro smiles, nodding in approval. It's not the sort of nod Keith might have won from Shiro's clone, when he flew Black before. That version of Shiro always seemed like he was itching to take control back, and it made Keith feel like he had to live up to an invisible standard with every choice he made.

Keith doesn't blame him for that; he was struggling to hold himself together and Keith was untested as a leader. But there's no denying it put a strain on their relationship.

This time around, Shiro doesn't seem to be in any rush to step into the leadership role again. Maybe some day--Keith is fully prepared to step down if Shiro's recovery brings him to the point of resuming active duty--but for now, Shiro is actually focused on his own needs for once, and whatever feedback he offers Keith is simple encouragement. (It's nice, even if Keith doesn't fully trust it to be so simple.)

Krolia returns before long, and Keith meets her at the perimeter formed by the lions.

He stops, staring at her, trying to figure out how to ask what he wants to ask. She seems upset. (She doesn't, actually, but Keith thinks she is, anyway. The way she left feels too much like Keith's need for space when something's bothering him.) But... how does he ask that?

"I didn't realize."

Her voice startles him, and he stands up a bit straighter, his brows drawing together. "What?"

"I'd seen the other paladins seeking comfort from each other. Engaging in shows of affection. You've always avoided those before--except for the one time you fell asleep on Hunk's shoulder. Considering you proceeded to act as though it never happened, I had assumed it was a momentary lapse."

She's talking, but he swears everything she says makes progressively less sense. "I mean... it was? I'm normally not good with touchy stuff."

"You seemed to enjoy it earlier."

"The group hug?" Keith asks. "Yeah." (She's staring at him, her gaze uncomfortably intense, and he shuffles his feet.) "I missed them. It was nice."

"I'm... confused."

Keith runs a hand down his face, blowing out a long breath. "That makes two of us."

For another long moment, Krolia goes on looking at him. Then her shoulders slump and she turns aside. "You'd think after so long on Earth I would have a better understanding of human social norms."

Keith laughs at that, a little sad and a little desperate, because, yeah. He feels the same way every damn day. He wonders if he and Krolia might understand each other better if they stop trying to be what they think the other expects them to be. "Sorry," he says, crossing his arms over his chest to trap the rising hysteria. "Go on."

"Is physical affection... normal for humans?"

That's... not what Keith expected her to ask. "What? You mean hugs? I guess so, yeah. For some people more than others, but hugs are pretty normal on the whole." He pauses. "Are they not for Galra?"

Her next breath is wet and shaking, and Keith can't help but feel like he's said something wrong. "It's... complicated," she says. "We are social creatures. I think, left to our own devices, we would engage in such displays, but the Empire discourages soldiers from 'growing soft.' You are expected to wean your children from physical affection early, and everyone knows lovers indulge in carnal pleasures, but it's with the expectation that it will remain hidden."

Something has gone tight in Keith's chest, and he stares at his mother, transfixed. "Really?"

She nods. "In the Blade, things are not quite so strict, but most of us were raised in the Empire. Most of us, specifically, were soliders before we defected. Affection is not exactly taboo among the Blade, but there is an air of guilt that dogs us all. When we seek affection, it is stolen in dark corners, kept private between romantic partners or the very closest of friends. It is an intimate act, and for some of the Blade--for our younger members especially--it can be seen as demeaning. Infantilizing, even."

He remembers her holding him, on a dark night now nearly a year ago. Holding him close and singing to him, the way he imagines other mothers do for their sick children. He remembers waking uncertain if it was a dream, and Krolia keeping her distance. He didn't see her fear then, but he sees it now. She feared she crossed a line, and so she resolved not to push it. Not to push him.

He sees more of himself in his mother now than ever before--not just his rough edges and his drive to see the mission through, but his uncertainty, his fear. His longing for something he doesn't know if he's allowed to have.

Keith steps forward, his arms falling to his side. There's only a few inches between them, but that space seems insurmountable for a moment, as Keith looks at his mother and she stares back, her eyes wet. Neither of them is breathing.

He squares his shoulders and closes the gap.

It may be the most awkward hug Keith has ever witnessed, his hands hovering over her armor as he tries to figure out where they go, his shoulders rigid as his mother breathes in, sharp and wounded. Keith has only a second to second-guess himself, but that's long enough to wonder if he just ruined everything.

Then his mother wraps her arms around him, pulling him close, and he thinks he could cry.

There's a hunger in her touch, a desperation for closeness that he knows all too well, but she's just as cautious as him. They're both still feeling out the boundaries between them, both relearning what they need. What they want.

But this, he thinks, is something they can learn together.


	11. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time: Keith and Krolia finally talked it out and got the hug they've both been needing.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

"Holy shit."

It's halfway through dinner, and most of the team has slipped into an exhausted haze. Real food, fresh air, and the stress of a full month inside the lions has left them all drowsing. Lance kept up his energy longest, continuously pulling the others into games, or debates, or bouts of roughhousing. He was also the first to crash, passing out on Allura's shoulder.

He startles awake at Pidge's curse, humming vaguely as Keith hurries past him to where Pidge is set up with her laptop atop Green's paw.

"Something wrong?"

Pidge looks up, blinking owlishly at him, which is how he knows she completely forgot the others were there.

A moment later, her brain clicks into gear, and she waves him over, turning her computer for him to see. "I found something."

Keith stares at the screen, which shows a waveform of some kind. Keith checks for labels that might clue him into what he's looking at, but none of it helps. "A transmission?" he guesses. She's been focused on the comms a lot lately.

He's rewarded with a broad smile. "Not just any transmission. It looks like rebel encryption patterns."

"For real?" Lance asks, sliding in on Pidge's other side. Everyone has gathered around by now, their fatigue breaking in the face of this news--the first sign they've had of an end to the long slog through empty space.

Pidge preens under the attention, her smile turning smug. "Yep." She pauses, tips her head to the side. "I mean, it's a really weak signal, so I can't be a hundred percent sure. And I'll have to get a better lock on it before I can even _start_ thinking about how to respond. But! It's definitely not Galran."

Shiro opens his mouth, hesitates, then forges ahead. "So... these are the rebels your brother joined up with?"

Pidge freezes, and the rest of the team with her. They've already caught Shiro up on what he missed since he died (Keith missed most of it, too, after all) but it's easy to forget. It's easy to forget that the Shiro who was with them then is the one who died.

"Yeah," Keith says, when it becomes clear no one else is going to answer. "Though odds are Matt's not on the ship or base that's sending this signal. The Blade coordinated with them on a lot of our bigger missions, so trust me when I say they've got a massive network. Way bigger than the Blade's, even if they don't have nearly as many inside men."

Shiro nods, distracted, and Keith slides closer to him, reaching up to squeeze his shoulder. He took the news of Matt and Sam's rescue in stride, or he appeared to, but it has to bother him. Knowing that someone else had had those reunions in Shiro's place. Worrying how Matt will react to the truth.

With a smile for Keith, Shiro turns back to Pidge. "What do you need?"

Pidge snaps her laptop closed and hops off Green's paw. "I need to get closer."

"I'll come with you," Keith says, following Pidge around to the ramp.

She stops, glancing back, and shrugs. "If you want to spend another few hours stuck inside a cockpit."

It's not an actual protest, so Keith takes it as permission to climb aboard. "We'll be back," he says to the others. "Hopefully with a way out of here."

Allura nods. "Be careful. We'll be there in a heartbeat if you need us."

* * *

**One Year Ago**

* * *

It takes time for Keith to recover. Too much time. Krolia fashions a sling for his injured arm, and the limitations that imposes frustrating enough, but even worse is the way he tires so quickly. He goes to the stream to get water once when Krolia is out hunting, and what should have been an hour turns into four because he keeps having to stop and rest.

Krolia beats him back to camp, and it doesn't even matter that he took Yorak with him. She still forbids him to leave camp without her until further notice.

(She's just worried; he knows that. It doesn't make it any less frustrating to be cooped up in here with nothing to do but try to figure out how to hold a spear with his knees so he can attempt to whittle the tip with his one good hand.)

So Keith stays, and he rests, and he waits. The days crawl by with only minimal improvement in his condition. The wound in his shoulder heals slowly, but it heals. If it was just that, he could handle it. It's the way he's not getting stronger that makes him want to scream.

Krolia says it's a sign that his body is fighting off the last of the venom, or repairing what damage it did. All his energy goes to that, so he doesn't have much left over for other things. It's almost word for word how his dad explained it when a much younger Keith came down with a bad cold.

 _You're my little warrior,_ he'd say, kissing Keith's forehead. _You're fighting off the germs. But even warriors need to rest._

It's a sign of how much the near-bedrest is getting to him that the memory bring him close to tears. He rolls over on his bed of leaves, and Yorak comes to curl up against his back, and he rests, and he waits.

And waits.

He wonders how his friends are doing, and if he'll ever see them again.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

"You didn't have to come with me, you know."

Keith glances down at the top of Pidge's head. They've been flying for nearly an hour now, most of that time spent in silence. Neither of them are much for idle chatter, and Keith doesn't want to distract Pidge from her work. She pulled up the signal on Green's console as soon as they left the atmosphere, which was the first time Keith fully appreciated how weak it is. Even now, two star systems over, it's more static than sound, and what's there is too fragmented for Pidge's programs to decrypt it.

She's staring at him now, the beginnings of a pout on her face, and Keith holds up his hands in surrender. "I know. I'm just anxious to make contact." He pauses for a beat, then cracks a smile. "Plus, if I'd stayed, I think the others might have smothered me."

Pidge snorts, her whole body relaxing. "You know you love it."

Yeah, he kinda does. And he thinks Pidge appreciates the company, despite all her protests. She doesn't want to be babied, but she doesn't want to be alone, either.

He can appreciate that.

"How's the signal looking? Think whoever it is will keep broadcasting long enough for us to get a lock on it?"

"If it's what I think it is, then yes."

He quirks an eyebrow, but she's already back into the code, fingers flying. The waveform on the central display changes from time to time, sometimes clearer, sometimes more staticky. Keith doesn't bother to ask what she's doing; even if she answered, he wouldn't understand the technical jargon. Better to leave her her focus.

So he waits for the next time she looks up, scanning the stars before inputting a new course and pushing the engines to full.

"Who do you think it is?" he asks.

She inhales, glances back at him. "Matt."

The name brings a pang to Keith's chest. The two of them weren't close at the Garrison. Friendly acquaintances, maybe. Keith spent so much time around Shiro that he could hardly fail to get to know the other members of the Kerberos crew, but he was skittish then, even more than he is now.

But that was before. Before the battle at Naxzela, where Keith first stared death in the eyes. It didn't hit Keith right away--or at all for several weeks afterwards. But Matt seemed to understand anyway. He called sometimes, went out of his way to get assigned to joint missions Keith would be on. It was Matt who was there when reality came crashing down. (They lost someone on that mission. Not the first time, and not the worst, but something about it pierced the bubble of unreality that surrounded Naxzela.) He sat with Keith, a hand on his shoulder, and let Keith break down without judgment.

It catches Keith by surprise how much he wants to see Matt now. He thinks Matt might understand his complicated feelings about Shiro and his clones better than anyone else, and Keith desperately wants to talk to someone about it without worrying what they'll think.

But he has to be practical. "There are thousands of people in the rebellion, Pidge," he points out. "I'll trust you if you say this is a rebel transmission, but that doesn't mean it's Matt."

"No, I know." Pidge scratches at the place where her helmet meets the collar of her undersuit. "But Matt's the only one who would have understood my message."

"Message?"

She ducks her head and flashes a guilty smile. "I may have been broadcasting on the main rebel channels for the last week or so--You don't have to worry! I encrypted everything, and even if someone did crack it, it won't give anything away."

Keith's first instinct is to snap, but he breathes through it. This is Pidge. She may be sneaky, but she's not careless. She wouldn't put the rest of them in danger. "You're sure?"

"Completely. The body of the message is just a rebel memo confirming our deaths. That's what we want them to think, anyway!"

A few aborted sounds make it out of his mouth. She's not _wrong._

"Pidge," Keith says, because nothing else quite sums up the whirlwind in his head. "Are you sure-- Your brother..."

"Would've probably heard rumors anyway." Her voice is sharp, stopping Keith in his tracks. "Besides, I'm using his own damn trick. He can't get mad at me about it."

She sounds like she wants to pick a fight.

No.

She sounds like she's expecting _him_ to pick a fight, and she's gearing up to bite back. Keith knows too well how that feels, so he opts to sidestep the issue, returning his attention to the signal.

"Did you send along our coordinates or something?"

"Too risky." Pidge watches him, her gaze prickling along the side of his head. "And probably pointless, with as much as we've been moving. I pointed him to this frequency instead. Ultra-long range, to maximize our chances of picking something up. I included a subroutine in my original broadcast so each station that picked it up would rebroadcast it automatically. Spread the word around so Matt got the original broadcast, not just second hand reports. It wouldn't do him any good to hear the summary and not see that the birth dates were wrong."

"Think he's doing the same thing with the rebroadcasting?"

"If he's smart, which, let's be real, he's a Holt." She spreads her hands, dipping her head in imitation of modestly. "Still, if we're as far from rebel outposts as I think we are, it's going to take a few hours for messages to cross that distance, at least. Longer if we're bouncing from tower to tower."

"So what comes next?"

"Get a lock on this signal, first. See if he left us any instructions. A new frequency, an encryption key, whatever. Otherwise, we send a message with our current coordinates and a time frame, plus maybe a backup plan if this message for some reason doesn't get through in time."

"Do you think a week is long enough, or should we stay longer?"

She hesitates, and he suspects she's weighing her desire to see Matt against pure practicality. "A week is good. Longer than that and the odds the Empire finds us start to outweigh the odds that Matt got our message but just hasn't had time to come get us."

Keith nods, and they continue on in silence for another forty five minutes, the signal slowly stabilizing until Pidge can finally start the download. They wait, hardly breathing, as the progress bar creeps up, and Keith prepares himself for all the ways this could turn into a disappointment. It could be anyone behind this signal, up to and including Haggar, if she managed to crack Pidge's encryption.

The bar hits one hundred, and a new window pops up, showing three files. A new progress bar appears, filling up too fast for Keith to react.

"Uhh... What was that?"

"Propagation subroutine," Pidge says. "Don't worry; Green scrubbed the outgoing signal so it doesn't have anything to tie it back to Voltron." Seeing his frown, she rolls her head to the side. "It's the same program I wrote, so it won't do any harm, but I don't want to stop it, just in case there are enemy ships somewhere nearby looking to see where the chain stops."

Once more, Keith just has to trust her judgement on this. He leans forward as she selects the first file, a video.

Matt looks haggard. The room around him is dark, and the light of his computer screen makes him look gaunt. He hasn't shaved recently, and he makes a face as he rubs his jaw.

"Pidge." His voice cracks, and he clears his throat before he goes on. "I got your message. At least-- I mean, I think it's your message." His voice dips low. "I hope it's you."

Pidge has gone rigid in her seat, her face almost as pale as Matt's. Keith knows he should comfort her, somehow, but he can't move. He feels like he's intruding on something private here.

On the screen, Matt shakes himself, forcing a cheer Keith has seen from him too many times to count. "Anyway. I'm sending you a priority code. It'll redirect your next message to my personal line from any of our towers. Let me know where you are, and I'll be there five minutes after I get the coordinates. I've got a few squads on standby and a medical crew ready to launch with me, just in case."

His smile fades, and he leans forward, something dark and dangerous entering his eyes.

"And if this is a trick--if some sick fuck out there thought it would be a laugh to get my hopes up with this code... Know that I'm coming for you. I'll hunt you down, and I'll make sure you suffer ten times whatever you did to my sister."

* * *

Pidge sends out a message. It's short and subdued: a tired smile and a brief sketch of the situation, with assurances that they're all okay. She gives the coordinates for the planet they've landed on and tells Matt they'll be staying a week, then reaches for the button that will end the transmission. She hesitates, staring at her knees.

"Sorry for making you worry," she says, her voice small. "See you soon, I hope."

She keeps her head down after she hangs up, and Keith instinctively tries to fade into the shadows. He's not good with feelings, and he's learned that people don't generally like it when other people butt into their business.

But Pidge is basically family by now. Part of Keith shies away from the thought even now, but he doesn't quite let it go. She's _family_ , and Keith is the acting black paladin. Offering support is part of his job.

So he does what he always does, when he attempts comfort: he tries to think of how Shiro would handle the situation.

"It was a smart plan," he says, resting a hand on her shoulder. It's not as sure as Shiro's touch, not when Keith is ready to snatch his hand back at any second, but with each heartbeat he settles a little more. "You found a way to pass information along without putting the team at risk, and that means we're going to get back to Matt sooner than we probably would have otherwise. I know it hurts, but... anything would have hurt. It's like you said. Rumors were probably already circulating."

Pidge is quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, she lifts her hand and rests it on Keith's. "Thanks," she says.

Keith smiles, squeezing her shoulder. "Let's get back. If it's going to be a few hours before the message reaches Matt, we might as well have the others to distract us."

She nods, breathes in, and takes up the controls.

* * *

Pidge says the message could take as much as a day to reach Matt, depending on where he is and how many relays it passes through on the way. It's a depressingly long wait, considering they've never had to deal with a delay on the comms. The castle-ship had a better setup, but the lions are primarily short range craft, at their core. It's already pushing them to fly so far and with so little rest; Keith can feel it in Black's sleepy greeting when he comes back into range.

Everyone's tired, really. The others can't work up much excitement over the announcement that they got a message off to Matt, especially when Pidge tells them how long they're likely to have to wait.

"And that's assuming everything goes right. He might be away on a mission when the message comes through. It might get corrupted by solar flares, and he'll have to try to salvage what's left. It might take time to coordinate with the rebellion or--or--"

Lance holds up one side of the blanket draped around his shoulders against the evening chill. Pidge's face scrunches up at the silent offer, and she slinks over to curl up against his side.

Keith returns Lance's smile, then goes to where Shiro is sitting with his back against Black's paw, Yorak curled up at his side. He stiffens as Keith sits down, and Keith hesitates, automatically replaying the last few days in his head, trying to figure out if he accidentally offended Shiro somehow. But Shiro only smiles, so Keith forces himself to stay--half crouched, sure, and ready to bolt, but waiting on Shiro to say the word.

"I'm trying to ease into this," Shiro says, either explanation or distraction. He lifts his hand and pats Black's paw, smiling up at her. She stirs in the back of Keith's mind, radiating fondness, and Keith is glad that she and Shiro haven't lost each other. However all this plays out, he thinks Shiro will always be her paladin--as he should be.

Keith drops a little lower in his half-crouch, smiling at Shiro. "It's getting easier, then?"

Shiro shrugs. "I think right now most of it is that Black's half asleep. It's making me a little drowsy, too, but I'll take that over intense dissociation any day."

For a moment, Keith wonders whether Shiro's raw connection with Black is the reason for his tension. Then he forces himself to think of other things. They have hours to waste, at least, and Keith doesn't need to fill them up with a second layer of stress.

Fortunately, Yorak is always ready with a distraction, and a lazy game of tag quickly turns into a team-wide competition to see who can win her love and attention. (Lance wins, technically, but only because Shiro isn't playing.)

(The entire night, the longest she spends away from Shiro's side is one hundred and eighty-nine ticks when Lance entices her over with strips of meat stolen out of Hunk's skillet while he isn't looking.)

* * *

In the end, it takes one hour shy of a full day, at least by castle-ship standard. (It's bittersweet, to still go by the castle's timekeeping when the castle no longer exists, but it's the schedule they're all used to--all of them except Keith, Krolia, and Romelle--and they've had to develop enough new routines these last two months that keeping something approaching a regular circadian rhythm is the least comfort Keith could offer them.)

First comes the burst of light in the sky, brighter than the twin moons hovering over the horizon to the east but not quite as bright as the sun that hasn't yet set. Hunk is dozing when it comes, most of the rest of them distracted with an Altean game Allura has been teaching Romelle, but Keith is still attuned to flashes of a different sort, and he stiffens before he even realizes what it is that caught his attention.

By the time his eyes find his mother and he realizes he's braced for a vision, Pidge has noticed the wormhole, too. She almost dumps her laptop on the ground in her haste to stand up, the scramble startling Hunk awake and drawing every eye in camp.

The wormhole itself is no larger than a star in the sky, so they can't see the ship or ships that come through, but Green perks up a moment after the flash fades, and then the comm in Pidge's helmet--sitting on the ground beside her--crackles.

Pidge shoves her laptop at Keith, who happens to be closest at the moment, and slams her helmet down over her ears. "Matt?" she whispers.

The next instant, she's on her knees, a hand over her mouth to stifle the hiccuping, giddy sobs that rush out of her. There's a frantic exchange of conversation that may not actually be words and certainly isn't intelligible through the torrent of emotion, but the sobs turn quickly to breathless, cathartic laughter.

The rest of them are still frozen, watching Pidge like no one wants to be the one to ruin the moment, when the ship finally appears, first as a flash of light in the sky, then as a silhouette that homes in on their location. It comes in for a landing at a reckless speed, and Pidge stumbles to her feet, racing toward the cloud of dust kicked up by the engines.

Matt tumbles out of the small vessel's cockpit before the engines have even spun down, crushing Pidge to his chest in a desperate grip that lifts her clean off her feet. He curses under his breath, and his whole body shakes as Pidge tries in vain to straighten her helmet.

Once again, Keith feels like he's intruding, and he turns away, his eyes landing on Shiro. He stands, lips parted, hand half raised like he wants to grab hold of Matt. He doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Doesn't even blink.

But who can blame him? This is the first time he's seen Matt since the Arena.

Matt finally releases Pidge a few moments later to wipe his eyes, laughing sheepishly. "You're an absolute jackass for hiding the frequency in that announcement," he says, no bite to his words. "A genius, but a colder than a Felgyrian winter."

Pidge snorts, muttering something about a fake grave, but Matt has clearly stopped listening, his eyes drifting over the rest of the group.

"Oh my god-- _Shiro?_ " Matt tilts into a run, grabbing Shiro's half-raised arm before hesitating, his other hand hovering uncertainly over the metal-encased remnant of Shiro's right arm. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Shiro's frozen expression finally melts, and he offers Matt a tired smile. "I'm fine, Matt. It's _good_ to see you."

Pidge scoffs, loud and ungraceful. "Fine? Shiro, you literally died."

"Died--" Matt's voice deserts him halfway through the word, and he whips around, staring at Pidge, then back at Shiro, who glares at Pidge. (Pidge, for her part, is nonplussed.) "Please tell me you're joking."

Shiro sighs, squeezing Matt's arm once before pulling back. "It's a long story. Why don't we get back to civilized space before we get into it? I know I'm not the only one in desperate need of a shower."

It's a clumsy deflection, but Keith isn't fast enough to stop it--especially not since he's too busy staring at Shiro and trying to figure out what the hell is going through his head. Two years since he's seen Matt alive, and _that's_ all the more reaction he shows?

Shiro catches Keith staring, and for a moment, something like guilt flashes across his face.

Then he's helping Coran and Krolia pack up camp while Matt steals Pidge for another crushing embrace, and in the flurry of departure, Keith doesn't get a chance to confront Shiro.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Spazzcat for bringing up the wonderful potential inherent in "Pidge uses a fake death announcement with the wrong birth date to get in touch with Matt."


	12. Safe Spaces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time... Keith's recovery in the Quantum Abyss progressed more slowly than he would have liked. Meanwhile, Pidge finally got in touch with Matt and had a teary reunion, while Shiro held himself conspicuously distant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just in case anyone was worried, no, there are no season 7 spoilers in this fic. I've had it all planned out since season 6 came out, and I'm not going to adjust that plan now. Enjoy!

* * *

**Ten Months Ago**

* * *

Keith recovers.

It's a long, slow, painful process, despite there being no lasting damage. But whatever venom was in that stinger, it saps his strength for weeks after the fact. Even once he's back on his feet, he tires quickly and sleeps frequently. It worries him, at first. He wonders if he'll ever be back to full strength, or if he's always going to find himself winded after a single lap around the campsite.

It doesn't help that Krolia hovers. Always. He feels her eyes on the back of his head. He feels the ghost of her arms around him.

"I'm not a little kid anymore," he snaps one day when she calls training early. She's only just let him go back to sparring, but she's going easy on him and he hates it. He hates it all the more because he knows it's necessary. He just doesn't have the strength or stamina to hold his own in a fight.

For a moment, Krolia looks stricken, something vulnerable in her expression.

Keith is too frustrated to care. He hates being stuck here. He hates needing Krolia to take care of him. He hates that it's been over a year and there's still no sign of an end to their journey.

He wants to curl up in Krolia's arms and cry until the ache in his chest goes away, but he promised himself a long time ago that he wouldn't lay himself bare like that, not to anyone. (He's broken that promise before, with Shiro, with Matt. But Shiro has been the exception to every cynical rule Keith has for a long time, and Matt... Matt was there when Keith was at his very lowest. He's not yet ready to admit he's there again.)

He walks away.

And Krolia lets him.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

It's too much.

Keith thought he was ready to be back on the front lines, back with other people, but now that he's here, it's going just about as well as any other time someone's shoved him into a crowd and told him to stop being difficult.

It's little things, at first. The buzz of conversation in the air that kicks up as soon as the paladins unload into the hangar of the _Vianova_ , the rebel base ship where Matt's currently stationed. It prickles at Keith's ears, raising hairs along the back of his neck. It settles into his teeth, and every time his mind finds something else to seize on, he goes right back to clenching his jaw against the incessant noise. The ache that's taken root is little more than annoying, but he still wants to scream at himself for making it worse.

Worse than the noise is the crowding. There are people everywhere--jogging down the halls, gathered in doorways to pass messages and grab supplies. People who must be refugees--kids, in far too many cases, and not all of them accompanied by adults--gather in lounges or just sit, numb, against the walls.

Things have gotten bad since Keith went away.

Olia and the other commanders of the rebellion are eager to talk strategy, and Keith finds himself dragged away with Allura for talks, even as Matt pulls Shiro the other direction--off to see about replacing his arm.

Keith can't help noticing the way stark terror gnaws at Shiro's expression in the instant before he's whisked away.

There's more going on there than Keith has yet unearthed, and he longs for nothing more than to leave behind this meeting, find Shiro, and shut the rest of the world away.

He can't do that, though. He's the acting black paladin. He needs to stay on top of things like military intel and tactical options and the political climate of the crumbling empire.

He remembers, again, why he hated doing this before. It's easy ( _easier_ ) when it's just the team. He knows them, and they know him, and if all they need from him is direction and the occasional bit of reassurance, he can be that for them. He can try. He'll never be Shiro, but with them, he doesn't feel like he has to be.

With the rebels, it's a different story.

He survives the meeting, somehow--three long hours of stress and frustration. Allura does most of the talking, while Keith mostly tries not to yell at anyone. He feels himself racing toward overload--all the noise, all the attention, all the expectations. He can barely keep himself from running away, and the few times someone asks him a direct question, he fumbles through the answer. It's like his mouth has forgotten how to form sounds. The rebels must be wondering how a mess like him came to be leading Voltron--and they're not wrong to think that--but the awareness of their silent judgment just pushes him further over the edge.

As soon as Olia calls the meeting, Keith is out of there, not even slowing to tell Allura he'll try to make it to dinner with the team.

(If he's being honest, he doubts he'll be there. He's not hungry, and right now he doesn't want to be around people at all, even his team. It's a horrible thing to think, but it's the truth.)

He gets lost twice on his way back to the hangar where they left the lions, the crowds in the corridors jostling him at every turn. He picks up the pace, a tightness in his chest that won't go away, and keeps walking. It doesn't matter that he has only a vague idea of where he's going; so long as he keeps moving, he can keep ahead of his simmering panic.

The hangar is mercifully empty when Keith arrives, and Yorak is waiting for him between Black's paws.

The lion is crouched down, creating a shaded little hollow where her front leg meets her chest, and once Keith squeezes himself in, Black's bulk cuts him off from the rest of the hangar. Unless someone comes at him from dead ahead, they won't even know he's here. Hopefully the rebels are all too intimidated of the Voltron Lions to go poking around in their hangar.

Yorak whines, laying down a few feet away with her head on her paws, watching him with an uncannily human-like concern.

Keith folds in on himself. With his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms locked around his legs, and his back pressed firm to Black's leg, there's no room for Yorak to lay on him like she normally would, and Keith can't tell if that's a good thing or not. He wants the comfort that comes with her weight. He doesn't want the touch. Even the faint vibrations in Black's leg are almost too much for him.

It's not supposed to be this hard.

After a moment, Keith pries one hand off his legs and holds it out to the side, leaving a space underneath that's just large enough for Yorak to squeeze in. She doesn't waste energy standing up, just gives him a slow blink, disappears with a flash of light he thinks might be more muted than usual, and reappears under his arm, her side pressed up against his. Keith settles his arm over her, tangling his fingers in her fur and breathing through the tension.

He doesn't know how long he stays there, hiding from the rest of the ship. Long enough that his anxious thoughts move on from worries about what the rebel leaders think of him to the uncomfortable awareness that his team has probably noticed his absence by now, and that he'll need an excuse ready whenever he decides to rejoin them.

He should go now. Shiro needs him.

(It's just people, he tells himself. There's nothing to be afraid of.)

(Telling himself that doesn't help.)

He's loosened up some since he first came in here, re-positioned himself so he's not shoved into such an uncomfortable corner, stretched his legs out so Yorak can drape herself across his lap. Black, too, has shifted, lowering her head to further shut him off from the rest of the world, blocking out the hangar lights and surrounding him with a constant rumble. The result is a cramped little pocket of space--comfortably tight, where everything else about the ship feels too big. He has his back against Black's leg, his feet braced against her chin with his knees slightly bent. To his right, Black's shoulder creates a cavity that's so low-ceilinged that he'd have to lie down to fit inside. To his left, he has a few feet of room before Black's chin slants too close to her paw.

It's... comfortable.

Black is worried about him, he can tell, but she doesn't push for him to leave, and she doesn't take away the cozy little nook he has here. She seems to understand that he needs something more easily processed than the chaos of the _Vianova_. Just for a little while longer. Just until he figures out how to excuse his panicked exit to Allura.

It occurs to him that he may have missed dinner by now. At the very least, his stomach has started rumbling.

He should go.

He should go _now_ , before it gets too late to expect anyone to have food available to him.

He doesn't want to go.

So he stays. For another ten minutes, thirty minutes, ninety minutes, he stays.

Yorak lifting her head is the first indication Keith has that he's not alone. He tenses, shrinking down in the shadow of Black's paw. He doesn't know if that's a rebel or one of his teammates coming to look for him, but either way he instantly shies away from the idea of being found. He just needs a few more minutes.

(He can't deny that it would be easier if someone approached him first. If he didn't have to work up the courage to leave the safe space he's found for himself.)

"Keith?"

It's Lance's voice, and Keith doesn't know whether to melt with relief or dive for cover under Black's chest.

So he stays where he is and holds his breath.

For a moment, the hangar remains silent. Then a shoe scuffs against the floor, and Keith breathes out in a rush of air as Lance approaches his hiding spot. He looks up just as Lance leans over Black's paw, and there's no hiding now.

"Hey," Keith says, holding tighter to Yorak. "Lance."

Lance tips his head to one side, contemplative. "Yeah... Okay, Red wasn't kidding."

It's not what Keith expected him to say. Not at _all._ All he can do is stare. His shoulders hunch, his lips purse, and he knows he probably looks defensive as hell, but he can't help it.

"What, have you two been gossiping about me?"

Lance hops up on Black's leg, letting his feet dangle next to Keith's shoulder. "She's been nagging at me to come down here for, like, an hour. Wouldn't tell me what the big deal was, until she realized I was trying to sleep and wasn't going to come running because she wanted to go out flying or something."

Keith's chest constricts. "She dragged you out of bed for _me?_ "

Lance stops, his mouth hanging open, and glances down at him. "She said you'd been moping here all day. I guess she's worried about you or something, I dunno."

That's... Keith doesn't know what that is. Comforting to know that Red still cares, even after everything that pulled them apart. Uncomfortable to know that Lance wouldn't get out of bed for his lion, but would for Keith.

"Sorry," Keith says. "You didn't need to drag yourself down here on my account."

"What? No. Hey." Lance leans forward, reaching down to give Keith's shoulder a nudge. "You've been gone for two years. It's an adjustment, I'm sure."

An adjustment. That doesn't cover the half of it.

Lance falls silent again, and Keith folds himself over Yorak, soaking in her warmth to keep him steady.

"There room for one more down there?"

Keith looks up at the odd gravity in Lance's voice. He's not looking at Keith, but his fingers are drumming so frantically on Black's leg that Keith knows he has to be fighting not to let every last thought show on his face.

And... there's really no reason to say no.

Keith scoots aside. Just an inch or so; not enough to really even make a difference. But it's an invitation all the same, and Lance takes him up on it without a word, slotting into the narrow space beside Keith. They're practically sitting on top of each other, and Lance squirms for a moment, trying to get comfortable.

Then they settle in, and Keith can't lie to himself. It's nice. It's comfortable, having someone else pressed up against him. Lance loops his arm around Keith's shoulders, and Keith melts against Lance before he can think twice. He's had more physical contact in the last two months than he has since his dad died, and there's still a part of him that expects that to be bad. He's been starting to wonder if all those times rejecting touch was just him being difficult.

Except that _touch_ still bothers him. Bumping into strangers in the corridors of the _Vianova_ , crowding together with the rebel leaders in a tiny meeting room, even just the constant proximity of people here--it's an electric current rooted in his bones, an engraving carved into his skin with each hand that reached out to clap him on the back as he passed.

Touch is still iffy at best.

 _This_ is entirely different.

"I'm sorry you were alone so long," Lance says. He doesn't rest his chin on Keith's head--the action is nowhere near sure enough to call it resting--but in this position, incidental touch is unavoidable. (Keith doesn't mind.) "I'm sorry none of us could be there for you."

"Lance," Keith huffs, tired and hollow and wishing he could just... move on. He wants his friends, but he doesn't want their pity.

"No, sorry." Lance stiffens, and Keith feels bad instantly for letting his irritation bleed through. He snaps his mouth shut, waits for Lance to pull away.

Instead, he pulls Keith closer.

"Sorry," Lance says, softer this time. "I just meant... I know what it's like to be homesick, but to still need to be alone sometimes. Like, I've been homesick ever since we got out here, but I've had Hunk and Pidge to make it feel a little less overwhelming." He pauses. "I had all of you. I miss my family, but whenever it gets bad, there's always someone I can go to remind myself I'm not alone. But sometimes that just makes it hurt worse. I love Coran--he's like a second dad to me. But sometimes, when I'm missing my parents more than anything, it just hurts too much, you know? It's not fair to Coran to try to set him up as a replacement, and it doesn't make me not miss my parents, anyway.  Sometimes I just need to cry it out, you know?"

Keith is holding his breath by this point, staring at Lance's hand where it clings to Keith's armor. It stuns him, how easily Lance put it into words. Krolia isn't replacing anyone, but sometimes having her there--having her, but not knowing how to connect with her--just reminds Keith too much of his dad, or of the foster families that gave up on him, one after another.

Keith lifts his arm, haltingly, and places it over Lance's. "We'll be home soon, Lance. I promise."

Lance sucks in a breath, his hand frozen on Keith's shoulder. When he laughs, it sounds uncertain. "I know, I know. Geez, I'm terrible at this. I come in here to make you feel better and end up dumping all my crap on you instead?"

"Don't apologize," Keith says, because he can tell that Lance is about to do just that. "It helps."

Lance seems skeptical, but Keith isn't like him. Keith can't put these things into words. He doesn't know how to say that pity is different than sympathy. That Lance coming here to comfort Keith is exactly what he _doesn't_ want, but that Lance coming here and both of them comforting each other helps more than Keith could have anticipated.

Thankfully, Lance seems to get it anyway, and he settles back in beside Keith. Yorak looks up at them both, her tail thumping against the floor. Keith smiles, scratches her ear, and lets himself relax.

He'll have to get up sooner or later. Lance shouldn't have to spend the night in a cramped little hole beneath the Black Lion, and Keith shouldn't let himself go on hiding from the entire rebellion. He needs food, and he needs sleep.

But for right now, just for ten minutes, Keith forgets about the _shoulds_ and _shouldn'ts_ and lets his hurt mingle with Lance's until they wash each other away. Homesick. It's a good word for it, even though a few months ago Keith would have said he didn't have a home to be sick for. Chalk it up as one more thing Keith was wrong about--because this _is_ home. Lance, Krolia, Shiro, Hunk with all his hugs and Pidge with her quiet understanding, Allura's earnestness, Coran's protectiveness, even Romelle--they're family. They're _his_ family.

And this time, he's not going to walk away.


	13. Distance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time: The team's arrival on the rebel ship Vianova turned out to be a little bit overwhelming after so much isolation, and he retreated to the Black Lion to pull himself together. Lance found him there, and the two ended up comforting each other.

* * *

**Three months ago**

* * *

Keith heals.

He thought for a time that he might be relegated to camp for the rest of the journey, but he regains his strength--slowly at first, and then more quickly as the last of the effects of the poison leave him. It still takes time to get back to where he was before all this.

That's fine, though. He's no longer bed ridden; Krolia no longer has to go easy on him when they spar. He leaves the camp more often, first with Krolia and Yorak both to watch his back. Then, in short spurts, he ventures out alone. He keeps a closer watch on the jungle than before, and takes care not to roam at night without taking extra precautions.

But he's free. That was the worst of it, he thinks. Not just being weak and vulnerable. Being _stagnant._ He can endure the rigorous training regimen Krolia has devised for him, so long as he isn't left to stew in it.

They don't talk much, these days. They know each other well enough that it's not necessary. They trade off watches and go on supply runs as the need arises. They train, and Krolia comments on Keith's progress in short, focused sentences. They go on hunts together, where they communicate with hand signals and whistles that mimic the calls of alien birds.

They don't talk about what happened. Not about the attack, not about the hazy maybe-memories, maybe-dreams in which Krolia hugged Keith close to her and sang a lullaby he can't quite remember. They don't talk about the castle-ship, or about Earth, or about Keith's father. It's easier to focus on the present.

It's easier to recognize that, while they make for excellent teammates, they are not a family. They may never _be_ a family.

It's okay, though. Keith has built up the idea of his mother in his head, compiling his father's stories and fantasies from everything the world has told him a mother should be, until he's left with something grandiose and untouchable. Nothing and no one could have lived up to that picture he had in his head. Trying to make Krolia fit the mold can only lead to bitterness and resentment.

He tells himself he doesn't need her to be a mother.

All he really needs from her is to stay.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

Keith's mother finds him the next morning. She slides silently into the seat beside him in the _Vianova_ 's mess hall, and half asleep as he is, Keith almost doesn't notice. He looks over at her between bites of pastry, tensing in anticipation of a lecture. He's the acting black paladin, and she's someone important in the Blade. (She's never told him what, exactly, her rank is, but he knows she trained a number of Blades, and he knows she calls Kolivan by his name, rather than his title.) She knows better than anyone how he should be acting, and by how much he's missed that mark.

But Krolia only lifts a mug of something with the consistency of runny oatmeal to her lips and swallows a mouthful. "Sleep well?" she asks.

Keith shrugs. It was late by the time he and Lance finally got to bed last night. Lance didn't complain about the lost sleep, but he's nevertheless probably still sleeping, as most of the paladins are. Keith wishes _he_ was still sleeping, but Shiro came around early to invite him along on a morning jog--an old habit of theirs, first from the Garrison, then from their time on the castle-ship. They haven't been able to keep it up the last two months between the travel, the close quarters, and Shiro's achingly slow recovery.

With his energy back and room to run, it seems Shiro has decided to get back into the swing of things, and Keith misses him enough to not complain about the early wake-up call. They've had plenty of time to talk recently, but almost all of it has been over the comms. It was too hard for Shiro to be in Black. It still is.

So running was nice, even if the conversation was a little stilted. Shiro seemed distracted for most of that time, and when they finished he declined to join Keith for breakfast. Another appointment with Matt and the rebel med team, apparently. They'd promised to have designs for his new prosthetic today, and Shiro didn't want to keep them waiting.

Keith can't help wondering if it's something more behind the way Shiro's footsteps dragged as he turned away from Keith.

"I slept fine," he says to Krolia, trying to keep his voice neutral as a yawn pulls at his jaw. She raises an eyebrow in his direction, and he flushes. "I was up late last night, but that's my own fault."

Krolia hums, turning her eyes back to her breakfast. For a few moments, they eat in silence. Keith finishes quickly, steeling himself for another long day of politics and planning. He'd rather be sleeping, but that's not an option, so he'll throw himself into his duties. Get it over with quickly, he figures, and maybe he won't have time to get overwhelmed.

As he stands to leave, Krolia holds out a small device--about the size of a USB memory stick, smooth except for a single button on top. Keith stares at it for a long moment, his brows drawing together. "What...?"

"I reached out to Kolivan last night," she says, staring into the dregs of her oatmeal-soup. "Gave him a quick rundown of what happened during our absence. We'll need to set aside some time in the next few days to do a more thorough debriefing."

Her explanation only leaves him more confused. "What does that have to do with this thing?" He takes the USB from her and holds it between two fingers.

Krolia's lips quirk upward, a private joke to which Keith isn't privy. "In case you can't get away. Pressing that button will alert me to go ahead and start the call with Kolivan. At which point, of course, I'm sure he will respectfully request your presence. And as his time is very valuable, he's afraid it won't be able wait."

It dawns on him that, in her own way--as guarded and indirect as Keith himself--she's offering him a way out, a break from the pressures of leadership and constant overstimulation of the command room. "Oh," he says, because what else do you say to something like this? He closes his hand around the device, not even fighting the smile that pulls at his lips. "Thanks."

"Think nothing of it." Krolia stands, turns the other way. Before she can leave or Keith can think better of it, he steps forward and gives her a hug. She freezes for a moment--only a moment this time--and then wraps her arms around his shoulders. The brush of her lips on the top of his head is light enough that he almost thinks he imagines it, but her fond smile when they break apart is unmistakable. "Have a good day, Keith. I'll see you later."

"Yeah, uh. You too, Mom."

The word is an unfamiliar shape on his tongue, but Krolia's eyes light up when he says it, and it brights an answering warmth to his chest.

He tucks the USB into his pocket, and its weight bolsters him as he heads off to the first of many meetings.

* * *

The day's session with the rebel leaders is mercifully short. There's still a lot of work to do, of course, but Olia and her officers are in agreement that the paladins need time to recover, and all of them want to take full advantage of the element of surprise while they have it.  That means patience as rebel agents send in reports on enemy movements. In a few days' time, they will need to meet again to decide on Voltron's first target--first several, if they can get things to line up for two or three strikes in quick succession. After that will come the drudgery of reconnecting with allies and pushing back Imperial forces where they've begun to encroach on Coalition space. And, of course, the return to Earth. Voltron has a duty to the universe at large, but Keith has a duty to his team. He promised them they'd make it home, and he means to uphold his word.

But for now, it's out of Keith's hands. Olia thanks Keith and Allura for their information and assures them she'll contact them when there's something more concrete to discuss.

"In the mean time, you just focus on recuperating," she says with a smile. "Stars know you've earned it."

Part of Keith hesitates to leave. (He wants to, so much, but it feels like shirking his responsibilities. He thinks Shiro must have rubbed off on him.) When Allura announces that she's headed to the medical wing to consult with Matt on Shiro's prosthetic, Keith tags along. It's something to do.

"It never gets easier," Allura says out of nowhere while they're waiting for their elevator to arrive.

Keith glances her way. "What doesn't?"

"Politics. Leadership." Allura waves her hand. "You were thrown into that position much too quickly the first time around, and it was unfair of us to expect so much of you, especially while you were still grieving the loss of a friend."

 _And I didn't even know it,_ Keith thinks. Even now that they have Shiro back, it still sometimes blindsides him how close he came to losing Shiro for good. Shiro was dead. Shiro _died_. If Black hadn't managed to draw in Shiro's consciousness, he wouldn't be here now. As much as he feels like he's drowning now, it would be infinitely worse without Shiro there to offer advice, or comfort, or even something as simple as a quiet morning jog.

Allura rests a hand on his shoulder. He shies away from her sympathy, and when the elevator arrives, he seizes on the chance to pull away.

"I appreciate it, Allura, but none of what happened was your fault. I had my own issues to deal with." He pauses, leaning back against the wall of the elevator. "And I guess I've always kind of dealt with my issues by running away."

Allura leans against the wall beside him, watching the numbers tick by. "Not any more, it would seem."

After a moment, Keith relaxes. "It's not so much that I've stopped running away," he admits. "It's only where I run to that's changed."

"Oh?"

"I used to want to get away from everything--from the team, from my responsibilities as Black's pilot." He hesitates. "Don't take this the wrong way, but... it's hard for me to trust. When I left for the Blade, it was because... because I was scared to open up to the rest of you. Scared to take that kind of risk. It was easier to be alone, where no one could hurt me." He shoots Allura an anxious look. "Not that I--Not that I think any of you would do anything like that. I just mean--"

She quiets him with a hand on his arm. "You don't need to justify yourself, Keith. I know exactly what you mean."

"You... do?"

She nods. The elevator door slides open, but neither of them move to leave. Keith is hyper aware of Allura's hand on his arm; he stares at it as she searches for words.

"I'm not sure if you noticed how...distant I was at first. How hard I tried to push you all away."

"Not really," he admits with a lopsided smile. "I think I was too busy doing the same thing."

She breathes out a laugh. "I suppose you're right. You see, I--Well, I'd only just discovered that my people were gone. My friends and family, all the old paladins. I was grieving, but I had a duty to the team and to the universe, so I shut it all away. I threw myself into the war. I told myself you needed a commander and not a friend, but the truth was... I didn't want to let myself get attached to you. I didn't trust the universe not to take that away from me, too."

Her words strike a chord in him, and he releases his breath on a puff of air. It's true, though--it's not his friends he had a problem with. Maybe at first he didn't trust them, but that didn't last long. It couldn't, when they spent every day fighting side by side, relying on each other to survive. He's trusted his team for a long time now.

He just hasn't always trusted that it would last.

"Trust is difficult to come by when you've lost as much as we have." Allura's voice is cautious, like she's afraid to cross a line, and when Keith looks up, he finds his own uncertainties reflected back at him in her eyes. "But for what it's worth, Keith, I'm glad to have you at my side. I'm glad you let me be here."

Keith smiles, uncrossing his arms as she reaches out again, tentatively, to put a hand on his back. "I'm glad, too," Keith says. "It took me a long time to realize it, but this team--this family... I don't know where I'd be without you. I'm still not sure I have what it takes to lead them, but I'm not going to run away again. I can't."

"Trust me, you're not alone there. I was raised to be a leader and even I feel woefully unprepared for this war." The elevator doors start to close, and Allura presses a button to hold them open. "Fortunately for us both, this isn't something we have to do alone."

"No," he says with a smile. "I don't suppose it is."

She leads him out of the elevator and down the hall toward the medical wing. Keith hasn't yet been this way, and he lapses into silence, letting the unfamiliar passages imprint themselves on his mind. It will take time before he knows the _Vianova_ as well as he knows Blade Headquarters, or as well as he once knew the Castle of Lions. More likely than not, he won't stay here long enough to finish his mental map. But it's habit, and it keeps him from worrying about the strangers who crowd the hallway even here.

(They are refugees; Olia confirmed that for him. There aren't many safe havens left with Voltron gone so long, so the rebels have taken on as many as they can support.)

(It's not enough.)

"It's just up ahead," Allura says, picking up the pace. Keith follows, but his footsteps falter as something metal clatters to the ground nearby. He glances at Allura, his hand going at once for his bayard as a clamor of voices rise.

He nearly runs into Shiro at the corner, and something inside him twists at the shuttered expression on Shiro's face.

Shiro blinks, his shoulders hitching toward his ear. "Keith."

"Is everything okay?" Keith asks. His heart is pounding, though he doesn't know why.

Shiro swallows, and in an instant, the uncertainty that began to spool across his face disappears. "Fine," he says, his voice flat. "Sorry. I need to--"

"Shiro!" Matt bursts around the corner, tripping over his own feet at the sight of them all gathered there. Shiro goes suddenly, disconcertingly still, but he doesn't turn toward Matt, who reaches for Shiro before thinking better of it and stopping several feet short. "I... I'm sorry, Shiro. I don't-- Did I do something wrong?"

Shiro starts walking, not saying a word.

He doesn't see the cracks in Matt's composure as he rounds the corner and disappears from view.

Keith glances at Matt, chest aching, then turns, releasing his bayard in the same motion. He chases after Shiro, reaching out to catch Shiro by the wrist. "Shiro, what's going on?"

Shiro stops, every inch of him rigid. "Let go of me, Keith."

"Not until you tell me what's going on."

"Nothing. Just... please, Keith. I can't do this right now."

It strikes Keith that he's never heard Shiro sound so tired, not even those first surreal moments after Allura brought him back.

Shiro pulls free of Keith's hold, and Keith is too shocked to even call out after him. He remembers Shiro's uncharacteristic distance when Matt first found them on that lonely world. He remembers Shiro's distraction this morning.

Something isn't right here, and though Keith feels as though he should know what it is, he doesn't have a single clue.


	14. Who I Used to Be

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time: Krolia and Allura both found ways to support Keith in his new role as the leader of the paladins. Shiro was with Matt and the Vianova's medical staff, working on the design for his new prosthetic, but as Keith and Allura went to see how things were coming along, Shiro stormed out of the infirmary. He was tense and distant, but refused to talk about what was bothering him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Non-graphic discussions of death throughout Keith and Shiro's conversation.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

"I don't understand," Allura says. "Did something happen?"

Keith tears his eyes away from the empty hallway behind him where Shiro disappeared a moment ago, carrying tension in every line of his body. A large part of Keith wants to run after him and demand answers, but he's never seen Shiro like this--cold and distant and unresponsive.

(That's not true. He has seen Shiro like this, once, except it wasn't Shiro at all. It was his clone, turning his back on his team as Haggar took control.)

That's not what's happening here.

Keith knows that. Her mind control was routed through the arm, and with it gone, she has no access to Shiro--if she even could have taken over the original Shiro at all. But the frigid look in his eye, the bite in his words, are too close for comfort. Shiro rarely gets angry, and when he does, he doesn't direct it at his friends. And he never shuts Keith out like this, without even a smile to soften the deflection. Whatever's changed that, whether malicious interference or festering hurt or fear--Keith doesn't like it.

He returns to where Allura stands with Matt just outside the infirmary, Allura looking just as concerned as Keith feels, Matt's face pale and pained.

"I... I don't know," Matt says, rubbing his hands on his sleeves. "I thought everything was going fine, right up until he stormed out."

"You were working on the arm, though?" Keith presses forward, his need for answers making him desperate. It seems to catch Matt by surprise, and he pulls back, his eyes going wide. "Maybe you--I don't know, maybe you hit something in there that--that messed with his head or something."

Allura breathes in, sharply, but Matt is already shaking his head.

"That's just it--we weren't doing anything. I mean, sure, I've got the skeleton of the new prosthetic, but we wanted to wait for Allura before we went any further. Easier to incorporate Quintessence from the start than have to go back and rework things later, right?"

"Then... what were you doing?" Allura asks.

Matt spreads his arms, helpless. "Just... talking. Catching up, you know? It's been a while since I saw him--well, the other him, I guess. Any way you look at it, we have some catching up to do."

Something cold settles into Keith's gut, and he has to force himself to ask the question on his mind. "What, specifically, were you talking about? Just now, right before he left?"

Matt frowns, his gaze turning distant. "Just now? Uh... We were talking about going back to Earth. I told him how Dad was asking about him in his last transmission--I've been trying to figure out how to respond, you know? Didn't want to write home to say that Pidge was missing, presumed dead." He shrugs. "I thought Shiro would be looking forward to seeing Dad, but he hardly seemed to be listening. Kept glaring at the door, then suddenly stood up and walked out. Didn't say a word."

Keith's heart sinks, and though he tries not to let his unease show on his face, both the others are looking at him now.

"What?" Matt asks. "Should I not have talked about Earth? Is that what upset him? Hell. I should go apologize."

Keith grabs his arm before he can leave, and Matt jerks to a stop, staring at him in bewilderment. "Wait," Keith says. "He probably needs some time." That's not the right thing to say, it seems, for something behind Matt's gaze crumples, and when he nods it looks more like Keith chastised him than offered some simple advice. "I don't think it was you." Keith pulls his hand back, rubbing his thumb along his finger. "At least... I think there's more to it than that. A lot more."

The pieces are floating there, just out of reach, and even as Keith starts to fit them together, he wonders how much he's been missing. Shiro's been quiet since coming back from the dead, but he's been getting better. He's been smiling and joking more.

He's getting better at _pretending_ to be okay.

Keith wonders how he never noticed that something was wrong.

* * *

**Two Months Ago**

* * *

The Castle of Lions looks larger than Keith's memories.

Two years living in a cave will do that to a guy, he supposes. (It was a nice cave, by the end, but it was still just a cave, and during his short time in the Altean colony he was too busy worrying about escape to stop and appreciate the architecture. So, really, anything larger than the small shuttle they stole was always going to look positively gargantuan.)

Still, it catches him by surprise, and he cuts back on the throttle for a moment as they approach. His friends' voices ring in his ears, discordant beside the feeble imitations that have filled his dreams on and off for two years. He hasn't told them how long he's been gone, and he doesn't plan to. There are more pressing concerns at the moment.

That, and he's not sure he wants to turn a spotlight on all the little ways he's not who they think he is. Not anymore. He's taller and quieter and he walks with a hunter's step, and out of everything true and meaningful he let slip about himself before he left, he has to wonder if any of it holds true anymore.

 _Two years,_ he thinks, forcing himself to continue on to the hangar where his friends are probably waiting for him by now. He remembers being daunted by the prospect of spending years in the Quantum Abyss, but the truth of it is those two years were easy. Each day was it's own battle, and it was hard to think beyond simple survival. Two years have stacked up almost without Keith realizing it, and it's only now that it's over that the full weight of it comes crashing down on his head.

"I don't know if I can go in there."

He doesn't mean to speak the words out loud--not in front of Krolia, and especially not in front of the bundle of rage and suspicion that is their unexpected companion. He speaks anyway, and as the hangar door opens to admit him, his heart begins to pound. The others are in there--some of the only people in the universe who have ever truly mattered--and they're expecting the Keith who went away. Keith the paladin, Keith the orphan, Keith the one who'd started to let them through his walls.

He's been so many things since then. He became a Blade. He stared his own death in the face. He lost friends and he learned the harsh truth that the universe doesn't care about the ones who fall in battle. He met his mother, and realized she's so much less and so much more than what he'd imagined.

He doesn't know if he can be the Keith they want him to be. He thinks maybe that version of him is gone forever.

Krolia's hand curls around his shoulder, the touch jolting through him like electricity. He goes still, his eyes dead ahead as he brings them in for a landing and powers down the ship. There they are. His friends.

He's missed them.

"I've heard the way you talk about them," Krolia says. "They're your family. A couple of years isn't going to change that."

There's regret in her voice, but also conviction, and when Keith turns to look at her, the pain in her eyes leaves him breathless. He wonders how many times she thought about returning to Earth over the years.

He wonders if she regrets the choices she's made.

Keith's stomach is still tied up in knots as he stands, but Yorak presses the top of her head into his palm, and he smiles as he scratches her behind the ears. He's not ready to face his friends. Not yet, and probably not for a long while, but the universe can't afford for him to waver now.

He squares his shoulders, braces himself for the worst, and goes to meet his friends.

* * *

**Present Day**

* * *

Keith tries to give Shiro space. That is, after all, what he told Matt to do, so he should have no problem following his own advice.

In reality, it isn't that easy.

He distracts himself for three hours by checking in on the rest of his team. Hunk and Romelle have set up shop in one of the cafes that dot the _Vianova_ in an effort to make it seem more homely. Hunk holds a mug of tea in both hands, Romelle seems to have ordered one of everything to try, and both of them whisper behind cupped hands as patrons flow through the shop.

Keith is pretty sure they're gossiping, but they aren't hurting anything--and between the two of them, there's an awful lot of potential for chaos--so he leaves them to their fun and continues his rounds.

Krolia has dug herself in on one of the public training decks and seems to have gathered seven pupils in the day and a half they've been here. She smiles when she catches sight of Keith and tilts her head to ask if he wants to join, but he just holds up a hand and lingers at the edges of the room for a few minutes before taking his leave.

Lance is up by now, playing a card game with Allura in the lounge at the center of the block of rooms Olia set up for the paladins. Matt is there too, Pidge draped across his lap, though it's debatable whether or not she's actually awake. Keith catches Matt's eye and knows at once they're both still thinking about Shiro.

"Game night tonight," Lance calls before Keith can leave. He stops in the doorway instead, glancing over his shoulder. Lance's gaze is far more intense than his light tone suggests. "You in?"

Keith turns around, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame. "What, need a head count for the room service order?" he asks dryly.

Lance grins, fanning himself with his cards. "Guilty as charged. It also wouldn't really be team night without you, so..." He shrugs, tossing a card onto the floor between him and Allura. "Seriously, though, no pressure. Just thought you might be down for some R&R. I promise we're keeping it lowkey."

Keith fights his growing smile, but it's a losing battle. "All right, all right. I'll be there."

"Awesome. Think we can count on Shiro?"

The cautious edge to the question tells Keith that Allura and Matt filled him in on what happened. They seem to all be waiting for Keith to decide how best to approach the situation. He's not sure if it's because he's the leader now or because he's Shiro's best friend, but either way it's an itch beneath Keith's skin telling him he needs to fix this. Even Pidge has cracked an eye open to watch him.

"I'll... let you know," Keith says. "I'm going to talk to him now."

Matt opens his mouth, then shuts it again. "Can... Can you tell him I want to apologize? When he's ready."

Pidge flings a hand up, blindly smacking Matt in the chin. "Shut up. You know he can't hold anything against you."

Matt smiles, but it's half-hearted, and Keith locks eyes with him and nods.

Then he's gone, his heart turning to lead in his chest as he wanders unfamiliar hallways. The _Vianova_ is huge, and he has no clue where Shiro might have gone. Once upon a time, Keith wouldn't have had this problem. He would have checked the Black Lion, the bridge, and the training deck in that order, and only if they'd all turned up empty would he have had to stop and think. But the bridge isn't an option here, Shiro still can't stand to be too close to Black, and until he has a new prosthetic and a few more weeks of recovery behind him, Shiro probably won't be going near any intensive training.

So Keith wanders. He passes infirmaries and restaurants and refugee quarters and hangar bays and a hundred other rooms he can't put a name to. He runs into Hunk and Romelle again--raiding an equipment locker this time and trying too hard to look innocent. They're terrible influences on each other, but Keith doesn't have the time or energy to separate them.

He just scowls and warns them not to get the team kicked off the _Vianova_ , then continues on his way.

He runs into Coran next, in a map chamber that reminds Keith acutely of the star maps on the castle-ship. The melancholy that hangs in the air can't be entirely in his imagination, and Coran's cheer falls flat as he welcomes Keith in and walks him through the routes he's plotting that might take them to Earth. It takes less than five minutes for Coran to realize that he's not listening.

"Something on your mind?"

Keith glances at the door. "Just... looking for Shiro. I haven't seen him since this morning."

"Ah." Coran strokes his mustache. "Well, you didn't hear this from me, but I heard he went and volunteered to help with some cleaning down in one of the storage bays. Had the operations crew in a tizzy--a paladin doing menial labor. I told them to leave him be. Figured he'd work through whatever's bothering him in his own time. Or you'd come looking for him."

Keith's heart aches as he gets directions from Coran. It's not the fact that Shiro's doing chores when he should be recovering--he's always been the type who needs to be moving.

But doing it in secret like this? And all the way down on the lower decks? He's trying to avoid the others, holing up somewhere they'd never think to look.

Keith hopes he's given Shiro enough time to recover, because he can't just sit back and watch when his best friend is hurting like this.

* * *

Shiro's exactly where Coran said he would be, surrounded by a store room that's three-quarters of the way organized--immaculately so, which tells Keith that Shiro hasn't just been hiding from his friends. He's been throwing himself into these chores in an effort to... what? Distract himself?

The answer lurks just out of sight, and Keith keeps feeling like if he only thinks hard enough, somehow this will all make sense.

Shiro isn't immediately visible from the door, but the sound of metal scraping on metal suddenly cuts off, leaving the room unnaturally still.

"Shiro?" Keith calls. "You in here?"

For a moment, he thinks Shiro won't answer, and it stings in a way he wouldn't have expected. Then, through the metal racks and stacks of boxes, he hears a sigh. Following the sound, Keith finds Shiro leaning against a metal crate, his head bowed.

"Hey, Keith."

Faced with the sight of Shiro, tired and guarded in a way he rarely allows people to see, Keith finds he has no clue what to say. It occurs to him that he should have planned this better. At the very least, he should have figured out how to broach the subject Shiro so obviously wants to avoid at all costs.

The silence stretches, and Shiro slowly unfurls, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders. By the time he turns toward Keith, the placid smile is back in place, and if Keith didn't know better, he might actually believe that nothing is wrong. "You need something?" Shiro asks.

Keith scowls. "Cut the crap, Shiro."

Shiro's mask slips, but the expression that flickers across his face in its stead isn't anything Keith expects. In that moment, Shiro doesn't look tired. His face isn't pinched, there's no furrow in his brow or long-suffering sigh to speak to patience worn thin. This is something wilder than that--Shiro actually flinches at Keith's words, and his eyes drop to the ground between them as his shoulders pull up toward his ears.

"What are you talking about?" Shiro can't keep the tremor out of his voice, and once more Keith finds himself floundering. Shiro doesn't just sound nervous, or guilty, or shaken from a flashback or whatever else he won't admit to. He sounds genuinely scared.

"What happened this morning," Keith says, talking just to fill the air, talking in the vain hope that if he lets the words out somehow they'll lead him to an answer that makes sense of this entire mess. "Come on, Shiro, don't pretend you weren't acting weird. You know that Matt thinks he fucked up somehow?" He sounds too combative. He knows he does, even before Shiro turns his back to Keith without a word and shoves halfheartedly on the crate, which moves a fraction of an inch closer to the wall. Keith backpedals, feeling sick to his stomach. "Maybe he did, I don't know. Either way, I'm supposed to tell you that he wants to apologize."

"It wasn't Matt."

Keith stops, his hands up in a defensive gesture. After a moment, he lets them fall. "Okay. I mean, I kinda figured. You seemed..."

He doesn't know how to finish the sentence without provoking a fight. He's never been the one who's good at this sort of thing. At talking through problems, at striking the right balance between addressing legitimate issues and respecting other people's boundaries. That's always been Shiro's strong suit, or Lance's, or Coran's. It should be one of them here, not Keith.

Shiro seems to know what Keith's trying to say anyway, and he sighs. For a moment, he looks like Atlas, the weight of the world pressing down on his back and bowing him toward the crate.

He gives up on pushing it to wherever it's supposed to go and turns around to sit on the edge. "You're right."

Keith, frankly, has no clue what he's right about, so he stays quiet, waiting for Shiro to talk. As long as he's willing, it's probably going to be more productive than Keith trying to steer this conversation.

"I'll have to apologize to Matt later. I never meant to take this out on him."

"Take what out on him?" Keith asks, when Shiro slips into a melancholy silence. "Shiro, just tell me what's going on. I can _help_."

Shiro laughs, low and bitter, and presses the heel of his hand to his eye. "I don't deserve your help."

"How can you say that? Shiro--"

"Because I've been lying to you." Shiro looks up, eyes pained. "I've been lying to all of you, and I'm sorry. I should have come clean a long time ago, but I couldn't bring myself to say anything. I didn't... I didn't want to lose you."

Cold fear takes root in Keith's chest, and he takes a single step toward Shiro before he stalls out. "You're not making any sense. Shiro... You're not going to lose us. You're not going to lose _me_. I'll always be there for you, no matter what."

" _Keith_ ," Shiro says. It sounds like a plea. It sounds like a farewell. Shiro's mouth hangs open for a long moment after that, like he doesn't know what else to say. Keith starts to talk, but it's like Shiro's cast a spell on him, blanketing the room in silence Keith doesn't dare break. He doesn't think he wants to know what's waiting for him on the other side. Shiro won't look at him, but he does, eventually, find his voice. "I'm not Shiro."

For the span of a heartbeat, the world stops. Keith forgets how to breathe, forgets how to speak. He remembers thinking that the cold look on Shiro's face reminded him of the clone, but--No. _No._ This is Shiro. They brought him back.

He can't breathe, and Shiro isn't looking at him, and it all presses down on his chest until he's sure he's going to pass out. "What do you--What do you mean you're not Shiro? You are! You have to be! Black saved you--protected you. Allura found you and brought you back. Of _course_ you're you!"

Shiro crumples, compressing in on himself until he looks lost and broken. Like the dying clone, who seemed so hollow, even as he clung to life, that Keith could hardly reconcile him with the Shiro he'd known.

"I'm not." Shiro tries to hide his tears, but they soak into his voice, strangling it, and Keith feels his own eyes burn in sympathy even as he's fighting against the weight of honesty in Shiro's words. "I'm sorry, Keith, I wish I was him, but I'm _not_. You saw the clones--dozens of clones, _hundreds_ of them, all ready and waiting to be deployed. Why would a place like that exist if she wasn't planning on replacing him time after time after time...? If she hadn't _already_ replaced him more times than any of us can even imagine?"

His words ring true, echoing dark thoughts Keith has been trying to keep under wraps. It's all tangled together, though, woven through his grief for a man he never knew, simmering beneath the surface of his nightmares. He's never thought the words, but when Shiro speaks them, it feels as though Keith has heard them a million times before.

"The real Shiro probably died in the Arena, Keith. The kinds of things they threw at him are... They're not the sort of thing someone survives. Not a starving human with no training and no resources. I don't know what Haggar saw in him, that she decided to keep bringing him back. Making him stronger. Turning him into her weapon. All I know is I'm not him. I never was. I'm just another clone."

Keith wants to be sick. He can picture it all too clearly. Shiro--younger, less haunted--alone in the Arena. He won his first match, against Myzax. Maybe he won his first several. Desperation and raw survival instinct pushed him farther than he should have been able to go, but it couldn't change the reality of his situation. Sooner or later, his luck or his strength ran out, and he was cut down.

That could have been the end of it. A tragedy, but a mercy compared to what came after. Haggar, ripping Shiro's Quintessence out of his dead body. His memories, his very soul. Transplanting it into a clone. Again and again. Watching to see how far this human would go. How strong he would become, all in the name of making it home one day.

And now he's here. Shiro, but not. Someone familiar, and a stranger at the same time. Keith remembers when he first pulled him out of the quarantine tent. How distant he was. He's always known that Shiro's trauma reforged him. He was never going to be the same man who left for Kerberos.

But the trauma didn't make him not Shiro. It didn't make Keith love him any less.

"I thought I could keep it in," Shiro whispers. "I thought--I don't know. I thought it might hurt less if I let you go on thinking that he was okay. The truth is I'm just a coward. I didn't know how to tell you that you'd lost him. I didn't know how to tell Matt that his friend died for him more than two years ago. I tried--I _tried_. I told myself I wouldn't lie to Matt. I would tell him the truth before he started to think of me as him, but then he was there, and he was talking about Commander Holt, and I--I wanted to have that. I wanted--I wanted to be him, but I'm not."

The first sob is strangled, but it snaps Keith out of the numbness that's settled over him. He still wants to be sick. He wants to find Haggar and watch her burn for everything she's done.

But right now, Shiro needs him. He sits beside Shiro, and before Shiro can do anything more than tense, Keith pulls him into a hug. Shiro goes rigid in his arms, shaking like his clone did when Keith pulled him out of the cockpit of a dying Galra fighter, but Keith just clings tighter, his fingers digging into the folds of Shiro's shirt.

"You're _you_ ," Keith says, his voice hoarse as the tears finally spill over. "Whether that means Shiro or someone else doesn't matter. You're my friend. You're my _brother_. And I'm not going anywhere."

* * *

Shiro shatters.

He fights back with his words, insisting that he's not Shiro and he doesn't deserve Keith's love, that he's been lying to them all from the start. But he clings to Keith as tightly as Keith clings to him, and Keith can barely understand one word in five through the sobs that wrack Shiro's body.

He doubts it matters, anyway. He isn't good with words. He doesn't know how to refute the things Shiro is saying, except to show that he meant what he said. He's not leaving. He's not letting Shiro go.

Keith doesn't know how long they sit there, holding each other in a dusty storeroom. Long enough for Shiro to run out of ways to try to scare Keith off. Long enough for both their tears to run dry. It leaves Shiro subdued, and Keith remembers in startling clarity all the times they did this back on Earth, except with the positions reversed. Keith's emotions have always burned hot and left him gutted, and Shiro was always the rock in Keith's storm, the one sure thing he could seize on to keep himself from being swept away. He never thought he could be that for Shiro, or that Shiro would need it, but he's changed since he came out here. They all have.

"Shiro," Keith says, and falters as Shiro's hand twitches on Keith's back. He tries again. "If you want us to call you something else, we will. You should get to decide for yourself who you are, but... For what it's worth? I think you have every right to call yourself Shiro if you want to."

Shiro pulls back, already shaking his head. "Haggar knows how to mess with people's minds. She can steal memories, and she can create them. Just because she made me think I was Shiro doesn't mean I actually am him."

"I think you are, though," Keith says. "Or at least... he's a part of you." He reaches up and tugs gently on Shiro's bangs. "Your hair turned white when Allura transfered your soul, right? And none of the clones at that facility had the white streak you used to. Couldn't that mean that what Haggar did was--not the same thing as what Allura did, I guess. Not as effective, and a lot more violent, but... I don't think she was just creating false memories. I think she transplanted Shiro's soul itself, or part of it. The Shiro who left Earth, the Shiros who died in the Arena, the Shiro who was with the team after you died, and you--you're all Shiro. Different versions of the same person, maybe, but not--not one real Shiro and a bunch of fakes. You're all real to me."

Keith looks up to find Shiro's eyes brimming with tears, and he gets self-conscious, rubbing the back of his neck as heat creeps into his cheeks.

"That's, uh--yeah. It's your call. I just thought you should know."

Shiro wipes his eyes, the silence this time thoughtful rather than oppressive. "I don't want to replace them. The ones who died."

"No one can replace them," Keith says. "That's not what this is about." He pauses, wetting dry licks. "Actually, I've been thinking. I didn't say anything because I thought you might take it the wrong way, but--well, I kind of wanted to honor him. The one who died two months ago. Haggar forced him to fight me, and I saw how much it hurt him. How hard he pushed back. I always thought he deserved to be remembered."

Shiro nods, staring at something unseen. "He wasn't a bad person."

"He was another version of you," Keith says with a smile. "Of course he wasn't a bad person. Just... different." He pauses, trying to gauge Shiro's reaction. "We could hold a memorial. For him, for the one who left Earth, and for all the other Takashi Shiroganes who died in between without a chance to find out who they were. But only if you want to."

"I do," Shiro says after a moment. "I think it might help me lay some things to rest."

Keith places a hand on Shiro's shoulder--a familiar gesture, and not one that passes Shiro by. After a moment, he reaches up to lay his hand over Keith's, then turns and offers him a smile. It's tired, and sad, and a little bit broken, but it's genuine, and Keith offers a tired, sad, broken smile in return.

"Then we'll arrange it," he says. "But for tonight, I think the rest of the team would like to see you. They've been worried."

Shiro's smile falters. "I'll have to tell them."

"They'll understand." Keith squeezes Shiro's shoulder. "And I'll be right here the whole time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic, and this chapter in particular, was heavily influenced by Spazzcat's meta on the truth behind Operation Kuron, which you can read in [this post.](http://squirenonny.tumblr.com/post/175558596744/vld-s6-clone-theory-and-what-the-dnd-episode)


	15. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last time - Keith and Shiro talked. Shiro confessed that he isn't the original Shiro, but a clone. The original Shiro died in the Arena, his memories passed on through a series of clones until one escaped back to Earth. Keith comforted Shiro, refusing to turn his back on someone who is just as much a brother to him as the original Shiro. Now all that's left is to tell the rest of the team.

Shiro tells the others as soon as he and Keith arrive back in the common room, where Lance has gathered everyone else for a night of rest and relaxation. (It was supposed to be rest and relaxation; it's not off to a great start on that front.) The whole time he's talking, Shiro keeps his head down, and he never once stops to catch his breath--or to give any of the others a chance to respond. Keith suspects he's afraid if he loses momentum, he won't be able to see this through.

It's not an easy pill to swallow for any of them, though not, Keith thinks, for the reasons Shiro is expecting. After all, this Shiro is the Shiro they all know and love. This Shiro is the one they fought alongside for so many months.

This Shiro, and the one who died after Haggar took control.

Shiro's confession proves to be the last push that breaks down the barriers, as if they were all waiting for Shiro to broach the subject of the dead clone first. Because he was a friend, too. Even now, even after discovering that he wasn't who they thought he was, the team still cares about him. They still miss him. And for the first time since losing him, it doesn't feel taboo to talk about him.

"I can't help feeling like I failed him," Lance admits. "He came to me, admitted that he didn't feel like himself. Admitted that it wasn't him who'd talked to me in the Voltron bond on Olkarion. I should have realized after that... I should have found a way to help."

Shiro opens his mouth. Closes it. Reaches out to rest a hand on Lance's shoulder. "You didn't fail anyone, Lance. No one could have guessed what Haggar was up to." He pauses. "I'm not him; I don't know what he was thinking, but--I watched him. Whenever he was in Black, I could feel him. He was his own person, but I knew him better than... honestly, better than he knew himself, I think. He could feel the subtle ways he wasn't quite me, and he started to suspect the truth, but I don't think he ever really put it together. So I feel pretty confident in saying that he wouldn't have blamed you. Far from it. He... _We_ don't open up easily. That's something every version of Shiro shared, I think. You probably would have had to pry it out of him, or wait until something else rattled him enough to get him to reach out to you again. What's important is that you were there for him when he wanted to talk, and that you were there for him afterwards."

"It just doesn't feel like enough, you know?"

"It's enough for me," Shiro says softly. "I don't know how to feel about all this yet. I don't even really know who I am, or who I want to be. But you're all still here. That's not nothing."

"Of course we're still here," Hunk says with the faintest ache in his voice. "It doesn't matter where you came from or whether you end up deciding that you're not 'Shiro' after all. You're still part of this family."

Emphatic agreement echoes around the circle, and Shiro's eyes grow misty again as the team pulls him into a group hug. Keith doesn't fight it, even though he still finds the tangle of limbs and the press of bodies a little overwhelming. It's overwhelming in a good way, and he doesn't fight the tears it brings to the surface. After everything this team--this _family--_ has been through, it's only to be expected. They all need to vent their emotions sometimes. They all need this closeness. The assurance that, whatever the universe throws at them, somethings are unshakable.

The group hug doesn't break apart so much as disperse, slowly, and only because it was getting too hot. Allura ends up sandwiched between Coran and Lance, who has his legs draped across Hunk's lap so his feet are close enough to prod at Keith's side; Pidge happily turns Yorak into a pillow in the middle of the floor. Keith stays where he is, leaning against Shiro.

It's a peculiar ache, accepting that Shiro died more than four years ago. It's not the crushing weight that hit him when news broke of the Kerberos disaster. It's not the vice around his chest that followed him everywhere for nearly two months after Shiro died again in the fight against Zarkon. Keith has already lost Shiro, and found him again, and mourned the pieces of him the Arena burned away. All this is doing is reframing it. It brings old pain back to the forefront, settling into his chest like a bird that keeps trying to flutter free.

But Shiro's here, offering comfort and seeking it from Keith in turn. He's not the man who came to Keith's school so long ago and made him believe he could be something. He's not the pilot with his eyes on the night sky and a challenge in the quirk of his lips as he led Keith off cliffs and taught him patience and went toe-to-toe with Administration on Keith's behalf.

Keith already knew all that, though, and none of it makes him love Shiro any less.

Matt approaches, a touch of uncertainty in his steps. He stops beside Shiro, hesitates, then sits down, leaving space between them. He watches Shiro with a sad smile, almost an apology.

"He died for me," Matt says.

Shiro tenses, and Keith squeezes his shoulder in silent support. "I wouldn't frame it like that," Shiro says. "Not that he wouldn't have, if it had come to it. Any version of me would risk everything if it meant you got to see your family again. But that's not what it was, in the Arena. It was a death sentence. Shiro died, and he did what he could to save you, but he didn't die _because_ he tried to save you. If he'd done nothing, the only thing that would have changed is that you both would have died in that pit."

Matt draws his knees to his chest and sighs, staring out over the room. "I know you're right, but it's hard not to feel responsible."

"I know." Shiro reaches out, then seems to second-guess himself, but Matt grabs his hand before he can pull it back.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to feel about any of this," Matt admits. "I miss Shiro. It hurts to know he's gone. But at the same time, I'm glad _you're_ here. Is that weird? You can tell me if it's weird; I know you're still figuring out who you are, so if you'd rather we just, I don't know, start over, I can... I can do that. I can try."

Shiro stares at their intertwined fingers, then glances aside. His gaze finds Keith, and something behind his eyes soften. "I don't think we necessarily need to go that far. It's pointless to pretend I don't have his memories, or at least most of them. I may not be him, exactly, but his experiences helped shape me. His relationships, too. You both mattered to him. You both matter to me, too. I don't think how I feel is any less valid because it started with him, so it would be pretty hypocritical of me to tell me you can't do the same. Just as long as you know that I'm not going to be exactly the same as he was."

"That's just life, Takashi," Matt says with a smile. "People change. Even if you take away the complicating factor of the whole clone thing, I'd still have two years of changes to catch up on." He squeezes Shiro's hand and ducks his head. "We'll take it one day at a time. Give ourselves a chance to catch up, accept that there are going to be surprises. All it takes is a little patience... and a whole lot of duct tape."

The twitch of Shiro's lips suggests this is some private joke between the two of them, and Keith doesn't ask for an explanation. He just leans his head on Shiro's shoulder, allowing himself a small, contented smile as he turns his eyes to the others. Pidge and Hunk are already dozing, Lance and Allura whispering together. They're both still misty-eyed after Shiro's revelation, but they laugh softly and smile when they catch Keith looking. Across the room, Romelle plies Coran and Krolia for answers to a thousand questions about the Altea of old and about the universe she's discovering now for the first time. Her curiosity comes and goes in waves, but arriving on the _Vianova_ seems to have rekindled it, and the others are happy to answer as many of her questions as they can.

Keith watches them until his mother notices his gaze. Her smile is impossibly fond, and Keith responds with one of his own. A fierce contentment burns in his chest. It's not the contentment of an easy life, but rather the contentment of a happiness forged from hardship. There isn't a person in this room who hasn't suffered on the long road that brought them here. They're lost and hurting and all of them--every last one--is still finding their way.

But they have each other. It's a beautiful thing, and Keith wishes he could go back and tell himself of two-and-a-half years ago what it was he was walking out on.

It doesn't matter now, though. He's made it here. However much it hurt in the interim, he still has his team. He still has his family. And he can't regret anything that brought him to this point.

* * *

Matt fits Shiro with a temporary prosthetic the next day to give him some basic functionality until Matt and Allura are finished with the new arm. This one moves and grasps, and if it doesn't have much in the way of manual dexterity, Shiro isn't complaining.

They hold the memorial that night. It's a small, simple thing--just the paladins, Coran, and Matt. The ones who knew the other versions of Shiro. Keith takes them out in Black at Shiro's request, just far enough that no one will disturb them. He says that Black deserves to mourn, too. She chose both of the Shiros she met, after all, and Shiro is confident she would have chosen the original, too, if she'd had the chance.

Keith is inclined to agree. The three men he knew as Takashi Shirogane aren't one and the same, but the same strength ran through each of them. The same passion, the same protectiveness.

There's not much ceremony to the memorial. Just a team, sitting among the stars and remembering the men who passed away. They share stories. They laugh, they cry. Shiro remarks to Keith at one point that he doesn't know if he's mourning the loss of two lives, or if he's mourning the lost pieces of himself. Both, maybe.

Keith loses track of the time they spend out there mourning. Remembering. Celebrating. In the darkness and quiet, the ghosts of his lost friends are an oppressive presence, but he feels lighter by the time the words and tears run dry. They all do. Even Shiro hold himself taller as he makes a promise to his counterparts. To live the life that was ripped away from them. To remember them. To find his own path and his own happiness.

For Lieutenant Shirogane, the pilot. For Shiro, the paladin. And for Takashi, the man who's still figuring out who he is.

When they've finished, Keith heads for the pilot's seat, but he hesitates with his hand on the headrest. After a moment, he turns, seeking out Shiro in the dim lighting. He has his eyes closed--listening to the Black Lion, Keith surmises. He was nervous about spending so much time inside her, but that tension has long since drained away. It's true that his gaze is more distant here, like he sees something beyond the physical, but his smile says this extra sight is nothing to fear. Not when he has his team to ground him.

"Hey, Shiro?"

Shiro turns, his gaze growing sharper as it falls on Keith.

Keith jerks his thumb over his shoulder. "You want to fly us back?"

Understanding passes between them. It isn't about Voltron in this moment. It isn't about the war, or about leadership. Keith isn't stepping down any more than he would ask Shiro to step down. They're both paladins. Keith still has a lot to learn from Shiro, however much he's grown into this role since he first took up the mantle. Which one of them is going to fly into battle, or whether they'll trade off depending on the mission, or what the future of this war even looks like--those are all questions for another time.

Today, it's about something much simpler. They've both been chosen by the Black Lion. They both have a bond with her--distinct from one another, but equally real.

Smiling, Shiro stands and takes a seat behind the controls. His prosthetic isn't up to anything flashy, but it seems to Keith that Shiro hardly needs his hands to fly. The echoes of Shiro's link with Black prod at Keith's mind, and he smiles to himself as he watches them reconnect, testing the limits of a bond that has been dormant for too long. Shiro's expression is one of profound peace, and Black's gratitude resonates in Keith's chest.

The future is still filled with unknowns. Shiro needs time to figure out who he is now. The team will need to adjust to their new circumstances, and once they reach Earth, new adjustments will need to be made. Once, all this uncertainty would have rankled. Once, Keith might have pushed for answers that no one is ready to give, and when no one supplied them, he might have tried to run.

Now, though, he's content to wait and see how it all unfolds, to help the others find their path and to accept their help in return. And he knows they'll get through this the same way they've gotten through everything that came before--together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, everyone, for coming along on this feels train. It's been incredibly cathartic for me to write this--to explore some of the things the show glossed over and to give myself some much needed closure for the Operation Kuron storyline. I hope you all enjoyed the ride, and if you're ever looking for more feels, my profile is full of plenty of other Voltron fics to choose from. Some in particular you might enjoy if you liked this fic:
> 
> [The Monster in the Mirror](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11785851/chapters/26577345) \- A different kind of clone-feels fic, with a happy ending for Kuron/Ryou.
> 
> [Forge Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13921635/chapters/32042217) \- Another story about Keith figuring out where he belongs, this one particularly focused on his time with the Blade of Marmora and told from Kolivan's POV.
> 
> [(Don't) Stop Running](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13670295/chapters/31401591) \- Existential horror, mind-control, and hurt/comfort, though overall more action-heavy than this fic was. Hunk & Pidge-centric.


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